Fortunately we're not having an actual disaster. I've tried the backup conversion to virtual machine and the SDR recovery using a boot disc and neither work. It shouldn't be a complicated process but neither is able to function for different reasons.
Conversion to virtual machine (ESXi 5.1):
I start the wizard, enter all of the information required and start the job, it fails immediately with a logon failure. I've tried multiple accounts all of which are administrators in vCenter. Each time it says the user doesn't have access to the target. But if I go to vCenter and log in as that user I can create virtual machines, delete VM's, add storage, move VM's etc. I can't imagine what level of access backup exec needs besides administrator.
A simple way to avoid stuff like this would be to have an option to simply export to VMDK like other products. Then there's no need for any special credentials.
Simplified Disaster Recovery (If only):
Created the custom disk for the virtual machine I wanted to recover. Booted with that disk and started the networking service. Entered all IP information and Symantec complains it can't communicate with the network. If I restart the VM and boot into Windows, the Symantec agent is able to connect to the network so it just seems to be from the boot disk. The default intel driver is loaded, not sure what else I can do as their are very few options.
Anyone have any experience with either of these is BE 2012 would could shed some light on these failures?