Forum Discussion

pretorian's avatar
pretorian
Level 4
15 years ago
Solved

Retention level incomplete running background


Hi All,

We have Netbackup 7 with Policy_name 'mix_replace_tuesday'. The Policy
with retention level 7 days. When job starting on next tuesday,
restult the job is 'failed' cause the content volume not fully expire.
And then media status is 'NBU status:96, EMM status: No media is
available'.
Anyone has ever experienced like this ?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
7.1.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Remote Agent for Linux and Unix Servers
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    15 years ago
    That is how Retention levels have always worked....
    It starts calculating since the start of the job and will only expire when the minutes and seconds have passed. All images on the media must expire before the tape will become available.
    Use Tape Summary report (click Verbose) to see when exactly tapes will expire.
    Always add an extra set of tapes when calculating media requirements.

    Some users change daily retention to 6 days for this reason, but media constraints should not dictate your retention levels.
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    That is how Retention levels have always worked....
    It starts calculating since the start of the job and will only expire when the minutes and seconds have passed. All images on the media must expire before the tape will become available.
    Use Tape Summary report (click Verbose) to see when exactly tapes will expire.
    Always add an extra set of tapes when calculating media requirements.

    Some users change daily retention to 6 days for this reason, but media constraints should not dictate your retention levels.
  • pretorian's avatar
    pretorian
    Level 4
    15 years ago
    I've tried to create a script with the command 'bpexpdate', the script executed before the job running but it's not the best solution to automation associated retention level on policy. Can you give me a suggestion about this retention?
  • Andy_Welburn's avatar
    Andy_Welburn
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    If you really, really must use such a limited number of media & always the same one(s) then the only way around this that I could see would be as Marianne suggests & drop the retention period for these saves to 6 days such that the images have expired before the next jobs are due to run.
  • pretorian's avatar
    pretorian
    Level 4
    15 years ago

    actually I've tried with retention of six days. But sometimes there are users who want to restore the data on day 7. So I can not set a retention for 6 days. whether the retention hour could provide a better solution?
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    Buy more tapes!! Your media availability should not dictate retention periods. You need to purchase media to suit retention level needs. There are guidlines in the admin guides on how to calculate media requirements.
  • Andy_Welburn's avatar
    Andy_Welburn
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    I suppose it's possible, but when you start to 'micro-manage' to this level you could be making a rod for your own back wrt administration.

    If you can do 156 hours, then before you know it you'll get a request for 173 hours, then 185, then 50!
  • pretorian's avatar
    pretorian
    Level 4
    15 years ago
    there are additional questions:
    we have a policy (1 tape volume) with 6 client
    From 6 client, whichever is first client content that will be expired in that volume? can you describe ?
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    The backup that went active first, but it really does not matter in which order they expire. Media can ONLY be overwritten when ALL images on that piece of media have expired.
    Use Tape List report as well as Tape Summary report (verbose) to see expiration date and time of your tapes.
  • Andy_Welburn's avatar
    Andy_Welburn
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    Tape List Report when I had the responsibility of keeping track of the tapes. It's very good for determining the next tapes to expire when sorted by expiry date & time.

    Have actually scripted something similar for our "oppos" to use currently (not sure if they do!) which just outputs media id, expiry date & volume pool.