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bc1410's avatar
bc1410
Level 6
5 years ago

Netbackup 8.2 - need a 2nd copy of a tape

MASTER/MEDIA netbackup 8.1.1 server is a windows 2012 r2.  USing a quantum i500 with 6 LT06 tape drives

I will be perfroming some Archives soon with a retention of infinity to LT06 tapes and the client that is requesting these archives now wants to have a 2nd tape of the archive. We were originally just going to send these archive tapes offsite to iron mountain but now they want One tape to be housed onsite and the other to be housed at iron mtn. These archives tapes contain a different barcode sequence and i will be using a barcode rule to keep these tapes seperate from our daily/weekly regular backups.What is the best way to do this or what are my options to copy a tape to another.  

Do I do a copy option under the catalog within the GUI of the Admin Console.  ?  with this option are both archive tapes primary copies (can use either one to perform a restore?

Is there a way to perform 2 consecutive backups (archives) from the archive policy to 2 different tapes at the same time?

Or do I try to get client to purchase Vault in which Im not really familar with.  With the vault portion of netbackup would it use like primary copy/copy 1 to create the vault tape.?.  With this vaulted tape - if the orginal tape that is housed onsite was to go bad how is the vaulted tape used for a restore...??  Also with Vault - if the archive backup consited of 3 tapes will the vaulted job also be 3 tapes (probably a dumb question).  not sure if vault compresses or ?

sorry for all the different querstions..  Trying to get a game plan together.

 

thanks BC.

 

 

  

 

windows server 2012

6 Replies

    • bc1410's avatar
      bc1410
      Level 6
      5 years ago

      As always thanks Marianne!! for the info..

      ok about the Policy schedule attribute "Configure Multiple Cpoies"  so copy 1 will be the primary which I think I should keep on site in our secure safe incase of a Restore request.  Copy 2 will go off site..   So if down the road Copy 1 becomes a bad tape I can recall Copy 2 (tape) and use the NBU Management | Catalog | to verify the images on Copy 2 (tape) and change the "Copy #" to copy 1.

      So regarding -  The storage units that are used for multiple copies must be configured to allow a sufficient number of concurrent jobs to support the concurrent copies. The pertinent storage unit settings are Maximum concurrent jobs and Maximum concurrent write drives.    Im not seeing where the "Maximum concurrent jobs storage unit setting" is located... ?

      What about multiplexing? will this have an impact on the configuring multiple copies option...what should i be using...and any other attributes for the policy need to be adjusted? - "jobs per policy" , "multiple data stream"

       

      Thanks Again

      BC

    • bc1410's avatar
      bc1410
      Level 6
      5 years ago

      So what happens when using the Policy "inline" tape copy option to have 2 copies..  Since I will be doing multiple Archive data paths & when the tape (copy1) gets FULL and Im assumming (Copy2) tape will also be full at the same time - will NBU  just mount 2 more tapes and carry on with the job..  or does this have a potential to get a little messy when a large archive path doesnt fit on one single tape..

       

      Thanks

      BC

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    5 years ago

    bc1410 

    I will try to answer all of your questions, but the best will be to JUST DO IT, and then see for yourself how it works.

    About Copy numbers - Copy 1 is by default the 'Primary Copy'. Copy numbers cannot be changed, but you can promote Copy 2 to Primary Copy. See this section in the manual that I have shared:

    Copy 1 is the primary copy. If Copy 1 fails for some reason, the first successful copy is the primary copy.

    See Promoting a copy to a primary copy.

    I have no idea what this means:
    Is there a way to perform 2 consecutive backups (archives) from the archive policy to 2 different tapes at the same time?

    IMHO, consecutive means one after the other, at the same time means simultaneous. Like inline tape copies.

    I am curious about your use of the word 'archive'. What is the Schedule type?
    If you really mean archive, the schedule type is User Archive, the backup is started from the client using bparchive and files are deleted when the backup is successful.
    Is this what you are doing?

    If you want to automate duplications after successful backup (not using Inline Tape Copy), then the Vault option is the way to go. There is a separate manual for this option.

    The duplicate copies will use the same amount of tapes. Most (all) modern tape hardware has compression enabled by default.

    Storage Unit Settings depends on whether it is tape or disk.
    Maximum concurrent jobs is for disk.
    Maximum concurrent write drives is for tape.  There has to be a minimum of 2 if you configure 2 copies.
    If other backups are running at the same time, you need more than 2.
    Mutiplexing setting will still be used as before.
    No need to adjust Max jobs per policy or multiple data streams.
    The exact same settings will be used to stream the same backup to 2 different drives/tapes.

    Best to have a separate pool that you will use for the offsite copy.
    This way the duplicates will be easy to identify.
    Unless both copies start with new, empty tapes, they will not necessarily fill up at the same time.

    In summary, best to read the manuals, ensure you have sufficient resources (tape drives, tapes, time, etc), then JUST DO IT.

     

    • Krutons's avatar
      Krutons
      Moderator
      5 years ago

      I agree with Marianne on 'JUST DO IT'. You aren't going to break anything and the best way to learn is to try new things and then take a step backup and look and analyze the results.

    • bc1410's avatar
      bc1410
      Level 6
      5 years ago

      Thanks again for the Replies -

      Sorry for the Confusion on the word 'Archive"..   I will be using "FULL" schedule Type with a retention set to infinity. 

      I did what you said "JUST DO IT"..  I ran a little test today.  It successfully backed up the data (zipped files) to the 2 tapes.  

      So the tapes are going to be brand new LT06 tapes and Im planning on using a barcode rule so that these new LT06 tapes do not get used by our other backups/volume pool.   We are purchasing these tapes with a different barcode sequence.

      So I do wanted to use 2 different Volume pools one for onsite storage and another for offsite..  I will have to test this out as maybe this will work or maybe not..  but since Im using a barcode rule which will put these new tapes for example in the "D-Archive-1" volume pool.   Now if I create another volume pool such as "D-Archive-1-Offsite' Im thinking this will work by setting the policy schedule | multiple copies attribute for the copy 2 tape  to the "D-Archive-1-Offsite" volume pool.

      Thanks

      BC