BU EXEC2012 Tape retention

[zookdog]

Looking for a little help / ideas on tape retention

My concern is the client not swapping out tapes on regular basis.

So all my jobs I have set to append to media - terminate if no overwriteable -  Global settings for media overwrite is partial and media overwrite is set to scratch - but I have all my tapes in defined media set with overwrite set to 1hr and append =none allow append.

What happened was like I thought was client didnt swap tape and the tape filled up. All other jobs just were missed as it was waiting for media for running job.

I have 2 issues - Is there a way to have the job terminate when media is full?  and of course now the media is full and its a manual process to get this tape back into the rotation. Any suggestions/Idea? Thanks in advance!

[Kiran_Bandi]

append to media - terminate if no overwriteable

I do not remember seeing this option. Is it Append to media, terminate if no appendable media found? Best option to use is Append to media, Overwrite if no appendable media found.

but I have all my tapes in defined media set with overwrite set to 1hr and append =none allow append.

Assigned by BE as and when required OR have you manually assigned them to media set? Recommended practise is to keep the medias in SCRATCH media set and let BE move them to other sets as and when required.

overwrite set to 1hr and append =none allow append.

With this configuration along with your job configuration media in this media set can never be used, if i am not wrong. Your jobs are looking for appendable media and media set is configured not to append.

Is there a way to have the job terminate when media is full?

I doubt if one can do that.... 

 and of course now the media is full and its a manual process to get this tape back into the rotation

If it is part of above mentioned media set, it will become useful after an hour from last write. Otherwise, when the data present on that media is no more required move it to SCRATCH media set.

I would recommend you to re-check media set configurations...

[pkh]

append to media - terminate if no overwriteable

I do not remember seeing this option.

This option has been around since forever

overwrite set to 1hr and append =none allow append.

With this configuration along with your job configuration media in this media set can never be used, if i am not wrong. Your jobs are looking for appendable media and media set is configured not to append.

You are wrong.  The media set is set to infinite append.

Is there a way to have the job terminate when media is full?

I doubt if one can do that.... 

Again, you are wrong.  When the media is full, there will be a media insert alert.  You can configure an auto-response to the alert to cancel the job.

If you are not familiar with the subject, please do not post.

[pkh]

@zookdog - You should do the following.

If you are using a stand-alone tape drive, then set the OPP of the targeted media set to an appropriate period.  For example, if you are running daily jobs during weekdays and need the tapes swapped out daily, set the OPP to 6 days.  If the user did not put in the correct tape of the day, the nigh's backup job will fail.  Also, set the job to eject the tape after the job completes.  This will also prevent the tape from being used the next day and the ejected tape provides a visual clue to the user that that tape needs to be swapped.

If you are using a tape library, you can schedule the tapes to be exported after the job so that they are not re-used the next day.

[Kiran_Bandi]

This option has been around since forever

I don't even see it now.. Option shouldn't be differing between installations. Can you help me with a scrrenshot? I am posting a SS of what i can see in BE.

Append=None means Infinite Append. How? Sorry PKH i am not aware of this...

[pkh]

These are from BE 2010, but similiar parameters exist for BE 2012.

[Kiran_Bandi]

This is None- Infinite Allow Append. Not what mentioned by OP. But still i am ok with what you said in earlier posts.

Still, don't you realize what you highlighted in first screenshot?

Append to media,terminate if no appendable media found. What OP posted is: Append to media, terminate if no Overwritable media found and we both quoted the same in our replies. 

What i posted was:  I do not remember seeing this option. Is it Append to media, terminate if no appendable media found? Best option to use is Append to media, Overwrite if no appendable media found.

[zookdog]

Thanks for all the replies.

I have all the jobs set to terminate if no overwritable media is available. The issue happened when the tape got full during a job. Then the job just hung and never cancelled/failed until I manually cancelled it.

Note: I also have about 15 different jobs currently. I guess I could combine a bunch of them but I spread out the backups throughout the evening and it works well.

I maybe missing something on my thought process of how to get the tapes to zero out (erase) when it's time to insert them again in the cycle.

I have 6 weeks of tapes Monday - Friday (monday1-monday2, etc..) . Fridays are my fulls and can handle 2 full weekend if needed but my thinking is I would just like to insert the tapes and have them erase. I saw you can create a windows scheduled task to erase the tape but thought the software would handle this. I think I'm just missing something or not fully understanding. I've done a lot of backup work but its always been disk based with replication..no tape.

[pkh]

I have all the jobs set to terminate if no overwritable media is available.

As previously advised, there is no such option.  I thought that you have made a mistake and meant "job set to terminate if no appendable media is available".  Note that appendable and overwritable media are two different things.  When you append to tape and it is full, BE will require an overwritable tape to continue.  You will receive an alert to insert an overwritable tape.  If you want to cancel the job then, you can configure an auto-response to the media insert alert to cancel the job, but why would you want to do so?

I presume that you are changing your tapes every night.  Define a media set with OPP = 5 weeks and AP = 1 day.  The first job in the day to write to the tape should specify overwrite, this will "erase" the tape and start recording from the beginning.  The rest of the tapes should specify append so that they will continue to write to the tape.  See this document

How to back up multiple servers to a single series of tapes in Backup Exec 2012