Help me understand media pools

[Will_Wainwright]

So I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of media pools.

Currently I have a (broken) Exabyte 430 tape library that is being
replaced with an Exabyte 8X143 library.

The 430 has 3 banks of 10 tapes each, 2 banks (20 tapes) were
in removiable magazines. This device was partitioned so that the
monthly backups pulled media from slots 1-10 (magazine 1),
weeklies came from 11-20 (magazine 2) and daily, exchange,
and the lone cleaning tape were in slots 21-30.

This made it real simple to manage as fresh magazines needed to
be loaded up on Thursday and the end of the month, and if the
job ran over you would have to drop in a second magazine into
the proper partition.

This new library is different. It has no real concept of a
magazine, it just has 143 slots for tapes! This is causing me some
problems....

A guy from another department, when presented with my
problem, suggested media pools. Based on my readings of the
Veritas docs I have the following plan in mind.

I want to get some custom label made up to prevent problems
with the labels that exist on my M2 tapes that will be archived...I
was thinking something like D1-20, M1-60, and Y1-20 (excluding
extra 0's) for my daily monthly & yearly jobs.

So I make up my media pools & add the media...what happens
when I need to add more media? Do I just order up more tapes,
label them for the proper media pool & add them into the library?

Is it that simple?

Lets say I want to keep my monthlies around for 6 months.
Assuming I have media on hand to support that many backup
sets on line that is overwrite protected for 6 months, will the
system start over at the "start" of the monthly media set?

Could it really be that easy?

Am I on the right track here or thinking crazy talk?

Please advise!

-Will

[Ken_Putnam]

If you define media pools, and if you have selected "Use Overwriteable Media in the Target Media Set before Scratch Media" , then Backup Exec will re-user the same tapes for a give job (assuming that the OverwriteProtectionPeriod has expired, of course)

If you want to simulate the way that your old library worked, you could partition the new one, assigning as many slots as you want to a "virutal loader". Say you define slots 1-7 as week one, etc.

You would need to set up multiple jobs, tho. One for each week, and use the advanced scheduling options to limit the execution of each. Then point Week one to Partition W1, etc.

[Will_Wainwright]

Thanks Ken....

I'm not really interested in simulating my current environment; I'm just
laying out the way things are so we can have an idea where I'm
coming from & where I think I am going to!

That said, does it seem like I'm on the right track on the media pools?

If they really are as easy as I described them asiin my prior post I'll
never look at doing things the "old way" again!

[Ken_Putnam]

Once things get set up, yes they are are easy as they sound.

However -

Getting things set up can be a real chore. When you add a new tape to the loader there is no way to force BackupExec to use that tape for a specific job (unless you do user partitions), since BE grabs the "oldest" scratch tape that it can find (the one that has been in scratch status longest) first

About the best that you can do is re-label or quick erase new tapes in slot order. BE will then grab them in slot order. But if a job decides that it needs two tapes rather than just one, it will go ahead and grab the next slot, even if you have Labeled that tape for a different job.

[Deepali_Badave]

Hello,

We want to know whether solution provided has helped you in getting resolve your problrm?

You cna alos refer the following technotes as an additional information:
An explanation of the "Overwrite Protection Period" and the "Append Period"
http://support.veritas.com/docs/237374

The basics of Advanced Device and Media Management for VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) for Windows Servers
http://support.veritas.com/docs/192265

NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be 'assumed answered' and archived.

[Will_Wainwright]

Not really!

I have 80 tapes that I want to add to my new library, that has 143 slots for media. The tapes are bar code labeled like so:

DA0001l2-DA0003L2 - daily tapes
MA0001l2-MA0003L2 - mailbox tapes
MO0001l2-MO0036L2 - monthly tapes
WK0001l2-WK0036L2 - weekly tapes

I want to add these to my 4 media sets (daily, weekly, monthly & mailboxes)

Lets say I add tapes to my monthly media set. Problem is when they get added they also pick up overwrite protection that ends in September!

If I quick erase the tapes they go into scratch media, but I want my jobs to pull media from the proper pool, how do I insure that my jobs will pull the right tapes from the scratch media pool?

Will the media be added to the proper pool when the job completes?

Please advise!

-Will

[Ken_Putnam]

You could partition the library so that only tapes from a specific partition will be pulled for a specific job.

Other than that, about all that you can do is:

For the first cycle through your tapes, insert only enough tapes for that night's job, and then quick erase or ReLabel in slot order to ensure that BackupExec will grab them that way

Then once all tapes have been placed into a media set by BackupExec, make suer that you have the "reuse overwritable media in target media set" option set, and you should be good to go.

[Sharvari_Deshmu]

Hello,

Please update us whether the above provided solution has helped resolve the issue


NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be marked 'assumed answered' and would be moved to the 'answered threads' pool.

Thanks,

[Will_Wainwright]

Not really. The problem I was having doesn't seem to have a clean way to work around it.

However, a co-worker here asked me "Why do you want to do that?" & the best i could come up with was to make it pretty.

That & Ken Putnam's comments made my choice clear, so off came the custom labels & on went some generic labels that came with the library & things look ready to go!

-Will

[Vishal_Dutta]

ha...these things happen sometimes..we get so caught up in having to create something that theres really no need for...K.I.S.S.