BEXEC Not using new tape drive when backing up

[systematic92]

Hi Guys,

A quick overview to the setup:

We have BEXEC R3 with the latest patches

We have 2 Netapp controllers/filers (one is a new one)

We have 4 tape drives (1 is a new one) in a HP Tape loader

We have 2 device pools configured in BEXEC - one pointing to use 3 drives from Netapp Controller 1 (exisiting drives/controller) and 1 drive (new drive) pointing to Netapp Controller 2 (new controller).

I have configured a job and asked it to use the new device pool. It remains indefinitely in a NONE/QUEUED status.

If modify the job and point it to the old device pool consisting of 3 drives and the old controller, the job starts processing fine.

I am tearing my hair out trying to work why the new configuration doesnt work.

The tape loader sees all 4 drives and says the new one is fine

Bexec sees the 4th drive and when a job starts it says IN USE but nothing is happening

I have used the HP Loader to load a tape (overwritable) into the new drive and then start the job, and again it says IN USE but remains in a NONE/QUEUED state.

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

In an NDMP environment the robotic arm has to be cobntrolleable form the saem devcioe that hosts the target tape device - as such if you have the tape drive on one NetApp and the robotic arm only on the other Netapp then BE will never be able to move a tape into the drive on the first NetApp.

Best suggestion is zone all tape drives and the library itself  to both NetApp Filers. Configure both NetApp filers to use the NDMP option and then let backup Exec manage the devcie sharing instead of trying to do it via zoning.