DLM and BE2014-SP1
Dear all,
we are running Windows 2012-R2 and BE2014-SP1.
There seems to be a critical bug where DLM is marking medias as "expired" an then moving them to "retired media" as acknowledged here:
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH225365
That is all fine but to me it seems there is more behind it.
I already posted in the thread here,
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/tapes-randomly-disappear-slots-backup-exec-2014
but it seems to me that not all of the tragedy behind DLM gets it's deserved attention.
On Friday I put 8 tapes. I manually scratch them all. The Full Backup runs, and on monday some tapes of that full backup set, again, have dissapeared. If I scan the Slots, where I know I put tapes, they re-appear but blue, overwritable, scratch. Only if I go then and check the Full-Backup log, those tapes have been in use for this Full-Backup.
And it happens to us, that DLM will "expire" medias of Backups that are on the bank. Meaning we cannot get to our data, unless we re-catalog the whole set.
So we can't browse through backup-sets to see if we have the Data backed up, which set to get from the bank in order to restore data for a user.
Luckily this weekend for example, it didn't happen. DLM messed up the tapes before the Full-Backup ran, so I only hat to intervene and scan the tapes in the "lost slots". But it could be, that in one week DLM will take medias used for this weekends Full-backup and "expire" them.
So my word of caution would be;
always check the media used against the audit log to make sure that there will not be valuable data overwritten once you scan slots where "lost medias" are located.
Keep an eye on your Backup-Sets by checking your Full-Backups through a simple browse through an restore job to check if all of the backups are still present and calculate an catalog in case you need data.
To me, this seems a serious bug.
It affects our Backups:
- lost data because of "expired" medias that are re-used even if they contained data
- restores turn into an painful experience because all of the sudden, medias in the Set dissapear because the are being "expired"
P.S. I really miss the ability to see in the restore section, which medias has been used for the backup job
Looking good.
DLM is now also much more consistent with when it runs and retires a lot more B2D Medias.
But only B2D Medias.
320 retired Medias and no Tapes.
I closed my case with Symantec. The last thing I have open with Symantec is a WebEx Session when the official fix is published to make sure the manual adaption will not cause problems.
A word to Symantec:
I understand it must be really hard to test a new feature (DLM) for all the possibilities. That said, it's really scary that a bug that bad (and yes, it is really bad in my eyes) made it to the live version.
Wish you all a very nice Day.
Marcel
