Forum Discussion

saqibhussain's avatar
saqibhussain
Level 3
8 years ago

Backups failing with Status 196: client backup was not attempted because backup window closed

Hi,

We are facing trouble in daily/weekly/monthly backup on tape drive, however it is being done on the server itself.

I would like to request you to help me in resolving this issue.

please find attached the snapshot of the error.

Capture 1.PNGCapture 2.PNG

quick response highly appreciated.

 

Regards,

Saqib

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    8 years ago

    There is honestly nothing that anybody can do for you to fix your issues. 

    If you have only one standalone tape drive, you need to understand how NetBackup selects media with Standalone drive, how NBU does not mix retention levels on media/tapes, etc.

    You can read through these topics in NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume II

    How NetBackup selects media
    About selecting media in standalone drives

    You should go to your management with 2 proposals:

    1. Employ night-shift operator to monitor tape requests and load tape in drive.
    2. Purchase a small tape library

    Explain the risk with the current situation - low backup success rate, missed backups, inability to restore, etc.

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    8 years ago

    No. It is not recommended to enable multiple retentions on media. 

    It only helps in the short-term and you will eventually sit with a bunch of tapes that cannot be reused.

    If you have Retention 3 and 9 (Infinity) on the same tape, you will never be able to reuse this tapes once it fills up. 
    ALL images on a tape must expire before the tape can be overwritten/resused.

    I have given you my recommendations. 
    I have nothing else to contribute here.

  • Vickie's avatar
    Vickie
    8 years ago

    Hi saqibhussain,

    As per you the schedule is different, so you probably can load the tape as per the schedule backup.

    Let say

    Tape               Backup Type                Schedule                                                 Action                   

    A0001             Daily                              10:00 PM (Mon-Fri)                        Load tape A0001 in Drive at 9:30 PM

    A0002             Weekly                          10:00 pm (Sat)                                Load tape A0002 in Drive at 09:30 pm (Sat) 

    A0003              Monthly                        10:00 pm (Last day of month)          Load tape A0003 in Drive at 09:30 pm (Last day of month) 

    I agree, this is really a manual task to be done.

    However this can solve your problem, until you get new Tape Library or autoloader.

     

    Regards.

     

  • Michael_G_Ander's avatar
    Michael_G_Ander
    Level 6
    8 years ago

    You need to look at your backup window versus your backup performance. Look in the planing guide and performance tuning guide to get an indication of what should be possible in your infrastructure from clients to media server.

    Cannot tell if your performance or lack thereof is related to your tape drive(s).

    • saqibhussain's avatar
      saqibhussain
      Level 3
      8 years ago

      Hello Michael,

      We checked the duration of our Backup window versus size. The configurations were given as per policies set by the system OEM, who have implemented similar settings in other clients facilities. I've attached screenshots of the backup window configurations.

       

      The daily backup is a differential incremental type, and the weekly and monthly are full backups. Additionally, the policies have been created for tape and server backups, the start times do not clash, however, the server backups are carried out succesfully (only Monthly and Weekly exist for the server).

       

      To directly answer your questions:

      1) Nothing has changed.

      2) We checked the manual, and the configurations are the same as when the backups were working.

      3) Previous posts referred to include the following link:  http://www.veritas.com/docs/000040912

       

      With regards to point 3), when the problem was not resolved, we resorted to restarting the server. That didn't help either.

       

      Thanks,

      Saqib Hussain

      • Marianne's avatar
        Marianne
        Level 6
        8 years ago

        You sent another screenshot to me via PM that you seemingly forgot to post here.

        That is the most important one as it shows what is wrong:

        Capture 3.PNG