Forum Discussion

BR549's avatar
BR549
Level 4
12 years ago

VTL tape Quick Erase Question

  I am running a Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise OS with Veritas 6.5.6 x64 installed.  This Veritas Master server is configured with a Physical Tape Library access via Oracle’s LibAttach software and a ...
7.1.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • BR549's avatar
    BR549
    12 years ago

    Working with a co-worker we finally developed a solution that works.  While not as simple as I would like it does work.  Essentially we run a VBS script to create reports for the Scratch and the NetBackup pools.  We remove the Non VTL tapes by keying in on the Tapes starting value, in our case it is V for Veritas and Z for VTL. 

    We run the list of the NetBackup Pool of tapes for a list of the Z Tapes in that pool from the previous day and compare that against the current list of Z Tapes in the scratch pool.  If the same tape number appears in both lists we output that information to a 3rd list and use that list to generate the bplable -erase commands.

    I have attached a zipped copy of our files to this response.

mrbill14's avatar
mrbill14
Level 3
12 years ago

I have a similar environment...  Windows 2008 R2 running 6.5.6 writing to a VTL for immediate backups, but we also have an HP ESL library for physically duplicating tapes for offsite.

I found a script (http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/two-way-mirrors-of-external-mailing-lists-3/symantec-netbackup-18/script-to-label-expired-tapes-in-a-vtl-60765/index-30.html) and modified it to our environment to label/erase any tapes that became expired.

 

First, you need to find the "media_deassign_notify.cmd" (found in the Netbackup\bin\goodies directory) and move it into the Netbackup\bin directory.  This script will write out to a text file (MEDIA_DEASSIGNED.txt) whenever a tape expires.

Also, I have this script ONLY write out the tapes that begin with a barcode of "VT" (which stands for Virtual Tape).

I then have a daily scheduled job (Label_MEDIA_DEASSIGNED.bat) that parses the text file.  This script checks the status of the tape (to make sure it didn't get used within the time that it expired and the time that the script ran) and then runs the BPLABEL command to erase the data.

I then rename the text file and append it with the date.  This way, if there are any problems and/or questions, I can refer back to the older text files.

(I have renamed the media_deassign_notify.cmd and the scheduled batch file to .txt.  You will need to rename it - as well as modify it to your environment - before use.)

Hopefully, this will get you going on the right track.  It has served us well...  (Been using it for over 2 years now.)