How to Create a "Is correct Media loaded" Job ?

[Horatio]

Hi

We have a client who is VERY forgetful about putting in a tape for their daily backup.

Costs preclude a tape library solution, so is there a way of creating a job to check that the correct media has been loaded BEFORE the actual backup runs ?

The packup runs at 23:00, so what I am envisaging is a simple little job, say, scheduled for 16:00, to ensure that media from the correct media set (or the Scratch Set), to ensure that overwriteable media has been inserted. If the job fails, then they will be emailed in time for them to insert the tape before the office closes for the day.

As always, any feedback greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Horatio

[sksujeet]

There is no way to detect and get an email for what kind of tape is in the drive right now but you can check manually and it hardly takes 2 minutes and can suggest to load a new one if not loaded.

We had the same kind of environment and we have a calender schedule where the message pops up for changing the tapes 30 minutes before. You can also schedule it in your mailbox so that it will prompt it. And you can schedule a quick erase around 5 PM just to make sure the tape goes to scratch media and should n't be a problem for nightly backup.

[CraigV]

Hi Horation,

I suspect you can use a test job to perform this, but it is probably going to run as long as a normal job.

Alternatively, you can create an inventory job to run each day, and get the user to check each day that there are scratch media in the drive...

Thanks!

[MattiasA]

Although I don't think there's a job template for it, it could probably be done with some workarounds.

I'm thinking you could probably have a "Check" job at 16:00 that writes a small file to tape and saved with the same Media set as the real backup (to still make it available). Then have BEX e-mail a certain address if the "Attention required; Insert overwritable media" alert is shown (this is done in Notifications).

Don't forget to make sure the Media set makes the tape appendable for enough hours (for example 12 hours if you want a new tape each day).

Do you think the above would be able to solve your problem?

[Horatio]

 Hi sazz, CraigV, MattiasA

Thanks to the three of you for taking the time to reply.

As always, it is disappointing that a large software firm appears to have failed to identify and address a "real world" problem.

Not 'Symantec bashing', as this applies across the board, but having worked in both large corporates and the SME sector, the high end is well supported (e.g. autoloader support etc), whilst simple tools that would help the mass business market are missing.

So we are left with a workaround. Having something scheduled within Exchange will not work in the scenario, as the client have lots of part-time staff who share the responsibility of changing the tape (one of the major reasons why it gets missed so frequently).

Instead, therefore, I want to receive an email if the tape is missing and can then phone the client to (politely !) remind them to change the tape.

As such, Sazz's suggestion of a quick erase might actually form the basis of the workaround. If the quick erase were scheduled for 16:00, then if there were no tape, I would get an email regarding the "Job failure".

Thoughts ?

If this is a viable idea, how do I set the timeout on the job to be notified promptly that there is no tape ?

Kind regards

Horatio

[CraigV]

...have you checked to see if there isn't a report that can be used to tell the user which tapes to use? If so, you can set this up to email the person concerned...

Thanks!

[Ken_Putnam]

Craig,

Because of the way that BackupExec manages tapes, there is no way to generate a "Pull List". 

About the best that the OP can do is create a BEMCD job to Inventory the drive and then EMail the report to a person/group responsible for swapping tapes for their action if a non-overwriteable tape is mounted, or if a daily tape is mounted for a weekly job, etc., and then run that from Windows Task Scheduler before the backup job is scheduled to start 

[CraigV]

...might be worth an idea I reckon!

ARCserve and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager can both do that!

[Horatio]

Hi Ken/CraigV

Many thanks for your further input.

Apologies for the delay in responding, but not being notified of new posts and so only found your updates when I signed in again today.

On the basis of Ken's suggestion, have created a job to Inventory the drive at 13:00 each day and then email me the results.

Not sure that this is exactly what we need (at least until we receive the results later today), but if nothing else, I believe that the Inventory job will tell me if the drive is empty.

Will provide further feedback once the job has run.

Kind regards

Horatio