Forum Discussion

manioro's avatar
manioro
Level 3
12 years ago

How to setup backup to Robotic library?

Hi,

First of all I would like to mention that I have no experience with backup to Robotic library, threfore I will appreciate your help:)

So far we have been using backup to disk but since we don't have anymore access to our offiste backup server, we are kind of force to go back to tapes and send them away to the secure offiste location.

What I'm trying to do is to setup a weekly full backup to my Robotic library which contains 8 partition (8 separate tapes in HP Autoloader 1/8 G2). 

I'm using Backup Exec 2012 and so far I have manged to install BE drivers for the Autoloader, but now I have no idea;) what next I should do in order to  backup weekly to each partition/tape so it can be automatically ejected and I can send it away lets say every Monday.

Ideally I would like to duplicate our weekly B2D to the tape. How can I do this? What are the best best practices to do so?

I'm not sure aslo if my Robotic library is properly configured, please see attachment. As you can see each partition/tape shows 0 byte free, I assume this is wrong.

 

Regards,

Manioro

2012
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Best Practice
Configuring
  • Larry_Fine's avatar
    Larry_Fine
    12 years ago

    Look in each partition to ensure you see a tape (ie a bar code label).  Assuming these are overwritable (ie reusable tapes), I would run an erase job on a tape.  That will confirm functionality and it should then also give you a free byte count like you expect.

    I am not a fan of software partitioning, so I would suggest leaving the library as an 8 slot loader, rather than 8 1 slot partitions, but that is up to you.

    To add a tape stage to your existing disk backups, you would edit the disk backup job, then click on "add stage" to have the disk backup copied to tape.

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    12 years ago

    I too am not a fan of partitioning.  I believe that is cause more harm than good.  See my blog

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/partitions-should-be-banned

    Get rid of your partitions.  Create one or more media sets with the appropriate OPP and AP that should be sufficient to protect your tapes.

    To write to your tapes, whether when duplicating a disk backup set or backing up straight to it, just change the storage device in your job to point to the tape library and then specify the media set that you want so that the tape is protect.

    To export tapes, use the web interface to your library and enable the maillslot.  After enabling the mailslot,

     

    1) Delete the library from BE
     
    2) Stop the media server and the library
     
    3) Start the tape library
     
    4) Start the media server
     
    5) Ensure that the library and tape drive is recognised and functioning correctly in the Windows Device Manager
     
    6) In BE, install the library if necessary. 
     
    If the mailslot is properly enabled, then you would "loose" one slot.  You would not be able to see the mailslot in BE and you would only see 7 slots for your library.
     
    With the mailslot enabled, you can right-click on a slot and export a tape to the mailslot.  You can then open the mailslot and remove the tape, rather than removing the magazine and taking out the tape.  For your jobs, that write to tapes, you can add an export stage after the job.  This will put the tape which was written to by the job in the mailslot.  This way you don't have to keep track of which tape to remove from library.  You just open the mailslot and the correct tape is there.
     
    You can also import a tape from the mailslot to an empty slot.  Put a tape into the mailslot, right-click on an empty slot and the tape would be moved to the empty slot.
     
     

4 Replies

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  • Larry_Fine's avatar
    Larry_Fine
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Look in each partition to ensure you see a tape (ie a bar code label).  Assuming these are overwritable (ie reusable tapes), I would run an erase job on a tape.  That will confirm functionality and it should then also give you a free byte count like you expect.

    I am not a fan of software partitioning, so I would suggest leaving the library as an 8 slot loader, rather than 8 1 slot partitions, but that is up to you.

    To add a tape stage to your existing disk backups, you would edit the disk backup job, then click on "add stage" to have the disk backup copied to tape.

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    I too am not a fan of partitioning.  I believe that is cause more harm than good.  See my blog

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/partitions-should-be-banned

    Get rid of your partitions.  Create one or more media sets with the appropriate OPP and AP that should be sufficient to protect your tapes.

    To write to your tapes, whether when duplicating a disk backup set or backing up straight to it, just change the storage device in your job to point to the tape library and then specify the media set that you want so that the tape is protect.

    To export tapes, use the web interface to your library and enable the maillslot.  After enabling the mailslot,

     

    1) Delete the library from BE
     
    2) Stop the media server and the library
     
    3) Start the tape library
     
    4) Start the media server
     
    5) Ensure that the library and tape drive is recognised and functioning correctly in the Windows Device Manager
     
    6) In BE, install the library if necessary. 
     
    If the mailslot is properly enabled, then you would "loose" one slot.  You would not be able to see the mailslot in BE and you would only see 7 slots for your library.
     
    With the mailslot enabled, you can right-click on a slot and export a tape to the mailslot.  You can then open the mailslot and remove the tape, rather than removing the magazine and taking out the tape.  For your jobs, that write to tapes, you can add an export stage after the job.  This will put the tape which was written to by the job in the mailslot.  This way you don't have to keep track of which tape to remove from library.  You just open the mailslot and the correct tape is there.
     
    You can also import a tape from the mailslot to an empty slot.  Put a tape into the mailslot, right-click on an empty slot and the tape would be moved to the empty slot.
     
     
  • Kiran_Bandi's avatar
    Kiran_Bandi
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Hi Manioro,

    If you are using tapes Only for securing data in offsite location, then you can just duplicate weekly backups to tape from B2D. No need to backup the data from source location once to B2D, to tape and duplication. Not required.

    How to duplicate backups with BE 2012: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH187265

  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    ...to go against what Larry Fine & pkh have said about partitioning, I use it, and it works well. I can tell site reps on sites who haven't learnt much about hardware (or simply are too lazy to do things properly) which tape to put into which slot. And when they remove tapes, they know what tapes to remove from specific slots.

    So from my perspective, it works well.

    From BE's side of things, go to the device, right-click it and choose the option to partition it. Just keep in mind that if you start spanning tapes, and there isn't anything free in a slot, you'll have the job queue or fail.