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Choosing which tapes to pull for offsite storage

cwalter
Level 3

I hope this isn't a silly question.  I recently took over as Sys admin and still learning the ropes.  Is there an easy way to determine which tapes for a previous month to remove from the library and take to an offsite storage.  Give a little clarification.  We do daily incrementals and weekly full backups.  At the beginning of each new month, we would pull tapes for the previous month backup for offsite storage.  The previous Sys Admin told me to look at the library slots and whatever slot had black text, remove for offsite storage.

Problem that he encountered was sometimes when doing a restore from a past month, BE would need a tape from another month that was pulled.  Example, trying to do a restore from March 2022 tapes, BE would need a tape from April or Feb.  My thinking is his way was not very accurate in figuring out which tapes needed to be pulled.

I hope this makes some sense and any suggestions are welcomed.

BE slots.JPG

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

PJ_Backup
Moderator
Moderator
Employee

So you are creating a Custom report that will certainly show you what you need, though as you've seen these can get quite complex quite quickly.

One alternative would be to look at using Vaults. When you create your Media Set, create a new Vault first.and get the Media Set to use that vault. My reasoning here (because it could be argued this is over-complicating things) is that you can simply run one of the standard reports that are pre-setup. eg Media - "Move Media to Vault" (to show 'what media should be moved to a vault')
Refer to the admin guide (Tape Storage chapter) for more info   https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/59226269-152612234-1 

Or have you tried the "Recently Written Media" standard report rather than creating a custom one?

There are a lot of options/filters available within reports, and are no additional add-ins available (3rd-party or Veritas ones) as far as I know.

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4 REPLIES 4

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

The most reliable way is to take a look at the joblogs of the jobs whose tapes you want to remove.  The tapes used by the job would be listed there.

cwalter
Level 3

Appreciate the reply.  Let me run this past you and see if it makes sense.

I'm creating a report that looks at Media Group Category. I choose Backup Set Date, Media Cartridge Label and Backup type fields.  In the filters, Backup type = Full, Media Cartridge Label contains L5 (we use LTO 5), media creation Date IN LAST 7 Days and Excludes Scratch Media.

Am I on the right track in your...or any bodies opinion?  Are there any third party or Veritas add ins that can be used for creating reports?

BE tape pull.JPG

PJ_Backup
Moderator
Moderator
Employee

So you are creating a Custom report that will certainly show you what you need, though as you've seen these can get quite complex quite quickly.

One alternative would be to look at using Vaults. When you create your Media Set, create a new Vault first.and get the Media Set to use that vault. My reasoning here (because it could be argued this is over-complicating things) is that you can simply run one of the standard reports that are pre-setup. eg Media - "Move Media to Vault" (to show 'what media should be moved to a vault')
Refer to the admin guide (Tape Storage chapter) for more info   https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/59226269-152612234-1 

Or have you tried the "Recently Written Media" standard report rather than creating a custom one?

There are a lot of options/filters available within reports, and are no additional add-ins available (3rd-party or Veritas ones) as far as I know.

cwalter
Level 3

OH YES!!  The Recently written media looks like it's exactly what I need!  It's simple and straight forward.  

Will that report always have library media label first in the list?  We always start our weekly full backup Friday evening.  We have a large file share array that usually takes several days to complete barring any issues.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!  That just saved me a ton of time!

BE tape pull.JPG