Monitoring tape drive status

[SchiederLeonard]

Hi!

Sometimes the tape drive in BackupExec goes into the OFFLINE state. Is there a way to monitor this status with SNMP or WMI? I know I can set notifications for device events, but I would like to actively monitor the status of the tape drive with WhatsUp Gold.

Thanks in advance!

Regards, Leonardo

[CraigV]

Hi,

You can set a trap via email. There is a notification that can be done via SNMP too...just check out the Admin Guide for your version of BE (you don't mention it).

Thanks!

EDIT: Check below on how to do so:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH65644

[SchiederLeonard]

An SNMP trap would be another type of notification. I would like to actively monitor the status of the drive using an SNMP OID or per WMI.

[CraigV]

...then this is the wrong forum to ask that question. Rather ask this in an MS forum or on the forum of your drive manufacturer.

There is an alert that can be configured within BE that triggers once the drive goes offline, and this alert can be sent via mail/SNMP.

Thanks!

[Kunal_Mudliyar1]

Can you elaborate on  actively monitor the status of the drive?

A tape drive status can either be online of offline, if its online you dont have to worry about it

If it goes offline u will get an snmp sent out to whatUp gold which can then notify you.

[CraigV]

"actively monitor the status of the drive" as in: is it online, or offline? If offline, send alert.

Hence the 2 posts above.

Thanks!

[SchiederLeonard]

With WhatsUp Gold we use a dashboard showing DOWN active monitors. For example, we monitor specific services on servers. If the service is stopped, the server is displayed on this dashboard with the service marked as DOWN.

Another example, if you want to actively monitor the CPU usage of a SNMP enabled device, you can poll the OID 1.3.6.1.2.1.25.3.3.1.2.[Instance of the CPU] and you will get the usage of the processor. You can set a range of values for the monitor to be shown as up (for example 0-95), and if the value doesn't match it will be shown as DOWN (e.g. 96-100).

I had thought BackupExec has a MIB tree in the enterprises SNMP tree (1.3.6.1.4.1), where I could retrieve the status of the drive used by the software.

[SchiederLeonard]

I've searched for the enterprise OID, and it seems to be 1302 (Veritas). So below SNMP OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302 there should be some info about BackupExec.

I polled a server running BackupExec 2010 R3 and only got values for the following OIDs:

beinfo 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302.3.1.3
 beName 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302.3.1.3.1
 revMajor 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302.3.1.3.2
 revMinor 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302.3.1.3.3
 beBuild 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302.3.1.3.4
 beSerial 1.3.6.1.4.1.1302.3.1.3.5

That's just the software info for the installed software...

[Kunal_Mudliyar1]

There are some .

MIB files located inside the BE installation DVD

X:\BE\WinNT\SNMP\ENG

and MOF files located inside

X:\BE\WinNT\WMI\SNMP\ENG

See if these help.

X is the drive letter of the drive where the BE dvd is mounted

[SchiederLeonard]

Thanks for pointing me to the MIB files Kunal.Mudliyar! I imported bkupexec.mib into WhatsUp Gold. Now I get a description for the values received from the server, but it doesn't change the SNMP OIDs the server is returning. BackupExec doesn't provide any more data through SNMP...

Any chance to get more data through WMI?

[LokiFatCat]

Any way you look at it, Backup Exec gets its information from the OS. If the connection to the drive is lost in the OS, it will go offline in Backup Exec. This would be a case to contact the hardware providor to troubleshoot the issue. If you review the System Event log and see Event IDs 5, 7, 9, 1, or 15, this indicates that he hardware itself is having an issue or may be failing: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH24414

If the RSM service is running, this may also be an issue. This can also be found in the above article

Another issue, is HP Insight installed on the system? this does interfere with Backup Exec and tape drives as HP Insight wants to control all interactions with the tape drive and these show up as odd errors or the drive going offline. We recommend disabling HP Insight during troubleshooting to see if it is the issue.

In the directory that Backup Exec is installed in there is a small program called Tracer.exe. this monitors SCSI communications and will show errors on the SCSI bus and can be a valuable tool in determining if the hardware is having an issue.

[CraigV]

...the issue is to get the BE MIBs imported into a 3rd party application that notifies the OP of issues. He doesn't want to use mail or the SNMP functionality within BE. Nothing to do with troubleshooting the issue.

Thanks!