Yes, I expect to be notified when a backup fails as well and realize the importance of good backups. That wasn't the issue.

My concern was do you (DBA's in general) immediately follow up on a failed backup by updating the catalog? "We" (I'm the only DBA here though) managed several customers and their databases..and like everyone else, I have lots of things/projects on my plate. It is going to be a management nightmare for me to take the time to update catalogs everytime a backup fails. Backup failures are not so uncommon here..blame it on the data centre, the vendors, the storage or whoever.