Same time for two jobs, autoloader have single drive

[Wajeeh]

Dear All,

Our autoloader is having a single drive, but have 8 slots to store tapes. I want to to check if I give same time for two jobs of two servers how autoloader will handle it. One job will start other will be in queue or second will fail when it find that drive is busy ?

This is right to do or should define different time if there is single drive in loader. Please guide.

Regards,

Wajeeh

[VJware]

The second job will be queued. It will be queued till the first job gets over or it exceeds it maximum run time post which it will get cancelled.

[Wajeeh]

Hello,

So for my each job in options it is defined 'Reschedule the job if it does not start 240 hrs after its scheduled start time.

According to this it will be fine to set same time for two jobs. Any other comments you have on this ?

regards,
Wajeeh

[VJware]

Just ensure the maximum run time is set long enough for the second job to remain queued, or schedule the backups at different times. Else, this should be fine.
 

[Larry_Fine]

If you want both jobs to use the same tape (having the second job to append to the same tape that the first job used), you may want to have the jobs start at slightly different times (such as a 5 minute delay).  Sometimes when two jobs start at the same time, the second job will fail to find appendable media and will switch to overwrite mode, which mean the two jobs are on different tapes.

If you don't mind the two jobs using two different tapes, then there is absolutely no problem with having them start at the same time and just letting one job sit queued until the drive becomes available.

[Colin_Weaver]

I would recommedn start 5 mins apart so you can control the order of the twp jobs - especially if you need Job 1 t start as overwrite and job 2 to append.

Note if you start Job1 as append, then unless your append period is short you can end up with semi random media request (and potnetial job failures)  because of running out of space - this is because every day will keep adding to the tape until it is full and then wil need a different tape mid job once it is full. (when you overwrite a tape it erase the whole tape, you cannot overwrite only the oldest backup sets)