Netbackup 7.1 Multiplexing

As a quick check what does the "State" of the queued jobs say

Also, what does the first few lines of the running and queued jobs say in the detailed status tab

The clue should be in there

Hi

The State is QUEUED and Status Details says "Drives are in use in storage unit RT0-SGRP-XXX"

First few lines of currently queued job:

10/17/2011 12:52:53 - requesting resource MSDP-STU-XXX
10/17/2011 12:52:53 - requesting resource servername-bk.domain.co.uk.NBU_CLIENT.MAXJOBS.clientname-bk.domain.co.uk
10/17/2011 12:52:53 - requesting resource servername-bk.domain.co.uk.NBU_POLICY.MAXJOBS.XXX-DISK-WINDAY
10/17/2011 12:52:57 - awaiting resource RT0-SGRP-XXX. No drives are available.

To confirm we do not currently limiit the jobs per policy, and we allow multiple data streams.

Thanks, Mike

Are all the job of the same retention period so that they can actually multiplex?

Is the jobs per client high enough.

This does say no drives are available rather than anything else so my feeling is more towards the retention periods being different but i have a nagging feeling that there is something else which i cant quite put my finger on right now

Here is what i was thinking about connected to multiplexing rules - "borrow" from an old thread - hope this helps you assess your setup and why the other jobs wont joing the MPX Group:

The scheduler has a strict set of rules for whether or not a
new job can join an active "multiplex group".  These rules
basically boil down to a number of qualities that the new
job has to share with the already-active job:

   -same retention level
   -same volume pool
   etc...

One of these less-obvious rules is that, if inline tape
copy is in use, the new job and the existing job have to
come from similarly configured ITC schedules.  This is best
illustrated by an example:

===========
scheduleA is configured to write ITC copy#1 to tape, copy#2 to disk
scheduleB is configured to write a single copy to tape
scheduleC is configured to write ITC copy#1 to disk, copy#2 to tape
scheduleD is configured to write a single copy to disk
scheduleE is configured to write ITC copy#1 to tape, copy#2 to disk
scheduleF is configured to write ITC copy#1 to disk, copy#2 to tape
scheduleG is configured to write ITC copy#1 to disk, copy#2 to tape,
copy#3 to tape
scheduleH is configured to write a single copy to disk

Question:
==
Assuming all other aspects of the configuration would allow multiplexing
for these schedules, which of the above schedules would be allowed to
multiplex to the same media?

Answer:
==
A+E can MPX together
C+F can MPX together
B,D,G,H cannot MPX at all in this example
============
 

Hi

This does make sense nad here is what we are currently doing:

1 policy containing say, 10 clients using the same schedules configured to perform 2 inline copies.  One copy going to MSDP and one copy going direct to tape.  The schedules therefore are not the issue however, would the inline copy to MSDP be interring with the media multiplexing?

Do you have the number of jobs to the MSDP set to 40 or higher? (4 tapes drives x 10 MPX)

It may however be something deeper than that - i'll see what i can find out...

Max concurrent jobs on MSDP is set to 40 currently.

OK - all looks OK - so can you run:

\admincmd\bpstulist -U -M <masterservername>

and post the output

Thanks

Thanks, as requested:

Label:                RT0-STU-XXX-mediaserver1-BK
Storage Unit Type:    Media Manager
Host Connection:      mediaserver-bk.domainname.co.uk
Number of Drives:     4
On Demand Only:       yes
Max MPX/drive:        10
Density:              hcart - 1/2 Inch Cartridge
Robot Type/Number:    TLD / 0
Max Fragment Size:    32768 MB

Label:                RT0-STU-XXX-mediaserver2-BK
Storage Unit Type:    Media Manager
Host Connection:      mediaserver-bk.domainname.co.uk
Number of Drives:     4
On Demand Only:       yes
Max MPX/drive:        10
Density:              hcart - 1/2 Inch Cartridge
Robot Type/Number:    TLD / 0
Max Fragment Size:    32768 MB

Label:                MSDP-STU-XXX
Storage Unit Type:    Disk
Storage Unit Subtype: DiskPool (6)
Host Connection:      _STU_NO_DEV_HOST_
Concurrent Jobs:      40
On Demand Only:       yes
Max MPX:              1
Max Fragment Size:    15360 MB
Block Sharing:        yes
Ok On Root:           no
Disk Pool:            XXX-MSDP-1

Label:                MSDP-STU-XXX
Storage Unit Type:    Disk
Storage Unit Subtype: DiskPool (6)
Host Connection:      _STU_NO_DEV_HOST_
Concurrent Jobs:      40
On Demand Only:       yes
Max MPX:              1
Max Fragment Size:    15360 MB
Block Sharing:        yes
Ok On Root:           no
Disk Pool:            XXX-MSDP-1

Mike

Ahhhh!

So are we talking Storage Unit Groups and Shared Storage being used in this setup?

Seen this with Media Server load balancing being used

It think it is related to this but would need to know the setup in more detail

Had a case with Symantec for a while about this but it just went away on its own and cant put our finger on what exactly changed - COMMON_SERVER_FOR_DUP maybe but we felt it was a communication issue somewhere.

It may just be that the inline copy is conflicting with your setup.