~ Need assistance in creating a backup solution ~

Hello all,

I have an HP SAS 8-slot robotic library using LTO5 tapes. My goal is to have full daily (including weekends) backups and have each tape devoted to one day each. I would like this due to ease of archiving tapes and finding tapes when a restore needs to be done. The 8th tape would be reserved for a weekly full that will eventually go offsite; we have a bi-weekly rotation of of weekly backups. This way, that magazines would only have to be loaded once a week and the offsite storage would not take one of my daily backups. I would also need to do a montly; this can be in place of the weekly if necessary.

Is this feasible? Should I go about this in a different way?

Tips/advice greatly appreciated.

Windows Server (2003-2008)

CraigV
12 years ago
BinaryPirate: Yes.

If you want a Daily/Weekly/Monthly backup routine, then you need to consider a GFS policy...Grandfather/Father/Son.

It's simple and easy to setup. You'd create the GFS policy, which starts with the Monthly job being created. This includes your Append/OPP settings, naming your media set (or selecting a pre-existing media set), selecting partitions (if you use them in a tape autoloader/library) etc. along with naming this. You'd move on to the Weekly configuration, and then the Daily configuration.

Each is going to have its own media set. Different retention times mean this is required. No sense in having 1 media set for everything where tapes can be overwritten, and you end up losing a Monthly for instance.

Once done, select a selection list and you're ready to go.

I suspect what's happening is that you have 1 media set and are trying to retrofit a GFS backup strategy into this which won't work. A policy is easily managed & I'd recommend it. Tapes belong to media sets and are not used by others. If you have an autoloader/library, you can further segment the tapes physically by creating partitions.

Read the TNs below for further advice too...

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO22927

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/techtip-using-backup-exec-policies-and-templates

http://astolstechblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/create-policy-based-grandfather-father.html (external article)

Thanks!

28 Replies

pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
This can be done. Create a media set with an OPP of 13 days and AP = 1 hr. Set all your jobs to overwrite and target this media set.

For the tape in the 8th slot, you should create another media set with longer OPP, but you should still use overwrite for your jobs.
BinaryPirate
Level 4
12 years ago
I should have mentioned the other part of this. Not sure how I missed it. I have barcoded tapes from 1 - 100; I wanted to make this the day of the week. How could I force be slot, if possible? Should I just let it take whatever tape it wants to use? I m just trying to make it so that last weeks tape/s wouldnt accidentally get put back in and overwritten (or even worse awaiting confirmation to overwrite at 2AM). What do you mean by set the job to overwrite? Do I need to do two separate jobs (I currently have a GFS policy)?
lmosla
Level 6
12 years ago
Hi BinaryPirate, Check out this Technote for a 'how to' on barcoding tapes. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH4948 and http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/using-barcode-labels-why-and-how also you don't need a separate job to set it to overwrite. This is done within the job. Job properties > select 'Device and Media" then under 'when this job begins' choose 'Overwrite Media' Here is a great document explaining this http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH5459
pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
You should let BE take whatever tape that it wants. It is a lot easier this way. Read my article below on why this is so.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/must-mondays-backup-be-monday-tape

As long as you have set up the OPP correctly, you don't have to worry that your tape would be accidentally overwritten.

As previously advised, overwrite is a job property.
BinaryPirate
Level 4
12 years ago
I more inclined to keep it organized rather than worry about an actual overwrite. And what I mean by that is; how am I to know if the tapes to be put in the library are for this week or are they already used the week previous? Id rather be able to count by day rather than waiting for BE asking for confirmation of an overwrite at 3am. For example; next week, by date, is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. I would like the barcoded tape to match that of the day. This way, each week, on a Monday, the tapes will be magazines will be changed. If looking to recover or store offsite, tapes can be found extreamly easy.
pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
If you have 2 sets of tapes, you can easily identify which set to use on which particular week.

As for using a particular tape on a particular day, do read my article referenced earlier again for why this will be a very difficult thing to achieve when you are using a tape library.
merlin66
Level 3
12 years ago
Hello BinaryPirate, if you want to use your Library like 8 single drives, just rightklick at your Library-node and configure it to use 8 partitions. Now you can target your Jobs to the Slot you want. The Job will run excluively at this Slot and newer use another tape in the library if the Slot is empty.
CraigV
Moderator
12 years ago
...I used partitions successfully, but only 3 (Daily, Weekly, Monthly - 5, 3, 1), but 8 partitions becomes a logistical nightmare. What happens if Tuesday's tape is put into Thursday night's slot by accident? BE won't span the backup to the next partition to search for an available tape. It will either queue (until a tape is imported, if you have an import slot configured) or fail.

Thanks!
merlin66
Level 3
12 years ago
I wrote that an empty Slot would be a Problem! But it is the only way to target a Job to a defined tape like a single drive an have the tapes market with monday, tuesday,... If you Change the tapes only one time a week, you can decrease the time for overwriting so in your described case if you fill in the tapes faulty it will also react like a single drive and overwrite the thurstays tape. I also prefere not to use partitions, but in some cases it can be helpful.
CraigV
Moderator
12 years ago
For sure, and like I said, I used them...but 8 becomes a problem. Put the Wednesday tape into a Thursday slot, and like I said, the backup either queues or fails. Rather get the OPP/Append settings right in a case like this above (ie. NOT using GFS where you can have more slots in a partition) and not use partitions.

I know some people would advocate this over partitions, and in this specific example so would I.

Thanks!