Differences in Catalog and Inventory

[Crazy_Excalibur]

I am new to using Backup Exec and I'm trying to understand the differences in catalog and inventory. I inserted new tapes into a tape library and ran an inventory job. This showed all my media and under media description it shows "blank media". When would you run a catalog job? What are they used for? Is it necessary to run when new media is inserted?

Thanks in advance,

[AmolB]

Inventory: Its a utility job, run inventory when you insert a tape in the drive. Inventory job scans the 

tape and updates the media information in the Backup Exec database.

Catalog: Its a storage operation which is used to generate catalogs of the data which is stored in the 

media. Before restoring data you need to run a catalog job on the media. Catalogs are responsible to 

display information in the restore window.

Refer to http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH33576

[Ken_Putnam · Accepted solution]

Run an inventory to tell BackupExec what media is mounted/present.  You need to do this every time you change tapes  (or import BKF files) to let BackupExec know what media is available for backup or restore jobs

A catalog job is used to transfer data from a backup media to the \Catalogs folder, so that you can run a restore job/reuse the media.  You need to catalog media if you are past the Truncation period (if you truncate your  catalogs to save disk space) or if you import Tapes or BKF files from another BE system 

[Crazy_Excalibur]

Thank you for the answer. It cleared up my confusion and I appreciate it.

[Crazy_Excalibur]

Thank you for the link to the doc. That was very helpful, and I also appreciate your response.