Backup Exec 2012 Storage Operations

IMPORT 

Consider you have a tape library and the slots/magnizes are empty

You go shoping and you buy new tapes.

You come backup and you put out 1st tape in the mail slot/input/export slot of the tape libray

You have to come to BE  goto the storage tab , look for slots and run and IMPORT job over the slot you want the tape to go and sit.

this job will pull the tape from the I/O slot and import it inside the tape library.

SCAN

Now conside you have a tape library which has a bar code reader (like the ones you have with billers at wallmart) integrated

You can buy bar codes and stick to your tapes and import them in the library

In order for BE to understand the label you have to run a SCAN job

It will SCAN for all the bar codes and will display it in the console, this bar code label becomes the media label .

Notice none of the tapes will go inside a tape drive while you run a scan job it, the bar code reader will read all the bar code labels

INVENTORY

Lets say you have not bought any bar code lables and inserted the tapes in the library.

Now you will need to label these tapes .using the LABEL job

But

Before labelling you need backup exec to be aware about these tapes that you have purchased.

You will start an INVENTORY job and BE will tell the tape drive to pick up the tape and put it in the tape drive and read it .

Once all the tapes are read they can later be labelled va the LABEL job

Basically inventory job is to know what kind of media it is and what is the media label.

It read the tape header by putting the tape inside the tape drives as opposite to a SCAN job where bar code will have all that info.

SCAN is a process to save time and is a replacement of INVENTORY if you have the bar code labels in implementation

Onece the fresh tapes are inventoried/scanned BE will put them in a SCRATCH media set

After you run the backup job BE will put these tapes in the Media set that you have specified in the job

Media set defines how long the tape need to be preserved before they are overwritten or for how long they can be appended.

All the Media and label related information is stored in the Backup exec`s database

So if you export the tape and import them them you need to inventory or scan in order for backup exec to know how and when those tapes where used.

When you are using a stand-alone tape drive and you put a new tape into the tape drive, you need to do an inventory so that BE knows what tape is in the tape drive.  This is regardless of whether you are using barcode labels or not.  

When you are using a tape library and you changed tapes, then you need to notify BE as to which tape is in which slot.  If you are not using barcode labels, then you need to do an inventory.  An inventory will read the label information which is physically on the tape.  If you are using brand-new tapes, then you would need to label the tapes first.  Once labeled, you do not need to do an inventory.  BE already know what tape it is from the label job.  Contrary to the earlier advice, you should NOT do an inventory before labeling the tape.  Doing so will give you an error because there is no label on the tape and the tape drive will not be able to read it.

If you are using barcode labels, you can do a scan instead of an inventory.  A scan is very much faster as it only reads the barcode labels.  This is the recommended way to update the library status when you are using barcode labels.  You still have the option to do an inventory but this process is very much slower as each tape has to be read in the tape drive.  For new tapes, you only need to put a barcode label onto the tape, put it in the library and do a scan.  BE will physically label the tape with the barcode label when it next overwrite the tape.

There are two ways to put tapes into a library.  I am assuming tapes which are labeled before

1) remove the magazines, put in the tapes and then do either a scan or an inventory.

2) use the mail or I/O slots and then import the tapes into the library.

If you are putting in a lot of tapes, then the first method is easier.  If you are putting in one or two tapes, then doing an import is easier.  If you are into using barcode labels, then you need to check the Inventory after Import option.  Otherwise, you would have to do an inventory after the import for BE to recognise the tape.  If you are using barcode labels, then BE will automatically recognise the tapes.

Note that in order to do an import, you need to enable the mailslot by using the front panel of the library or the Web interface of the library.  You also would not be able to use the mailslot to store tapes, i.e. you would "loose" one slot.

Thanks for both replies.Both answers are great and i appretiate the effort since the answers are quite long.I have shortened the explanations so if i have some mistake please correct me.

Impot

As Kunal.Mudliyar wrote"You have to come to BE  goto the storage tab , look for slots and run and IMPORT job over the slot you want the tape to go and sit"

Import is used only if i have a library and i want to specially select a slot in which the tape will go in,if i have a stand-alone tape drive inventory is used?

Scan

Scan is used only with barcodes and no inventiry is needed if a scan is performed,the barecode will label the tape and no inventory is requiried

Inventory

Used with stand-alone tape drives or with library that does not have bar-code scanner,Every time a tape is changed,an inventory is requried. 

I don't quite follow this - at the beginning of your post you say "If you are not using barcode labels, then you need to do an inventory." and later you say "If you are into using barcode labels, then you need to check the Inventory after Import option"

All my tapes are barcoded but if I import a tape from the library mailslot to a magazine slot, BE displays the correct tape label number but shows the tape as a Scratch tape until I run an inventory on it. This means that I can't just import a tape for a restore job, I have to Import and Inventory the tape (with the subsequent unwanted load/unload for the inventory). The restore job doesn't recognise the tape as being present until after the Inventory.

I would have thought that having scanned the label on the Import, BE would know what the tape was without having to inventory it.

Thanks for catching the typo.  The sentence should read

"If you are NOT using barcode labels, then you need to check the Inventory after Import option"

I think the problem that you described is related to this known problem

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH205392

You can check the Inventory After Import option to save you having to run the Inventory job manually.  If you are using BE 2010, then what I described earlier regarding the import operation holds true.

Thanks for that. I'm using BE2012. So, to summarise, Backup Exec SHOULD be able to identify the tape media details from the scanned barcode label but presently does not, so an inventory is required as a work around. I'll continue to use the Inventory after Import option when loading tapes. The technote wasn't very optomistic as to when a fix would be released.

Even for BE 2012, BE can identify the tapes by reading the barcode labels.  It is just that the tapes are not associated with the correct media sets.

Thanks again for the explenation