BE 2014 and Windows Server 2012 Std R2

[ravishankarappa]

I have BE2014 installed on a Windows Server 2008 Std R2. This is connected to a EXABYTE tape library. Couple weeks ago the tape library died. We have bought a new Windows server (HP Gen 9 Proliant) and a Quantum SuperLoader 3 Tape Library. I have two questions.

Q.1  Can I transfer the BE2014 licenses from old server running Windows 2008 R2 Std to Windows Server 2012 Std R2?

Q.2  I still have unused LTO-3 tape bar code labels. Can I use these with new LTO-6 tapes without problem? 

Regards

Ravi

[pkh]

1) yes 2) you got to check whether the format of the barcode labels are compatible with the new tape library

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

You might want to consider moving BE from 1 server to the other and retaining your backup information, unless you're looking at doing a clean installation. Read below on how to do this:

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH129826

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH67296

Thanks!

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

About the barcodes, as the library will know it has LTO-6 drives, if these barcodes decode to LTO-3 standard, the library may refuse to put the tape into the drive even though the barcode is valid.  Put an LTO-3 drive into the same library (if it is possibe) then the same barcodes might be accepted (on an LTO-3 tape).

As such it is not just compatible with the library that is the issue it is identification that the tape technology matches the installed hardware capability and as such I would expect your LTO-3 labels to not work even if the library reads them - only way to really know though is to try it with 1 tape as a test and make sure a backup job can use that tape to write to.

[pkh · Accepted solution]

I missed the LTO3 and LTO6 thing earlier. You actually have a problem. Your new LTO6 tape drive will not read LTO3 tapes. I assume that you would want to read the old tapes. At most it can only read 2 generations back which is LTO4. You cannot put LTO3 barcode labels on LTO6 tapes. As previously advised, this will misidentified them.

[ravishankarappa]

It is going to be clean new installation, for the following reason. The old tape library was using LTO-3 tapes, and the new tape library will not read them. So I basically will start fresh.