Best way to manage tape usage

[NetbackupIsToug]

What is the best method of managing how many tapes are currently being used on a weekly basis and how many  tapes will be required in the future. Is there something within NOM and/or java conosle that will give me what I am looking for. I need some sort of forecasting method to determine how many tapes to buy in the future.

[FrSchind]

Count your Tapes and Scratch Tapes every day (vmquery) and write it down. After some weeks you will have enough data to forecast the future tape usage.
You can do the same with the KBs written to tape (bpmedialist).

If you want a tool for this, you will probably have to buy one of the larger reporting tools like Veritas Backup Reporter.

[Karthikeyan_Sun]

CHeck your Volume Pools that will give the List of tapes assigned and used in a particular weekly set and based on that you can determine the future tapes found.

Also consider the future backup data size while calculating the future tapes count

[ayodeji]

you need to manually count from the output of "available_media" the tape utilization and you can estimate from there for the future.

[T_N]

In the Downloads section or direct here:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/...

Couldn't access to that link

[Anonymous]

Apologies should be up soon as the article with the link is pending approval, for submitting but direct download is here (for now)

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/sites/default/files/NBU_Lab_Document.pdf

[Anonymous]

This is still relevant doc I had when on a web course.
2 Sections

1. Planning for Today
2. Planning for Tomorrow
Part 2 is about media capacity planning and performance - worth a read.


In the Downloads section or direct here:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/netbackup-planning-today-tomorrow-monitoring-and-media-usage-lab-document

[Stumpr2]

1. limit number of volume pools. There should be a defining reason to create a new volume pool.
2. customized retention levels should be avoided if possible. Limit the number of retention levels
3. Make the most out of a media server before expanding and introducing a new media server.
4. Before using bpexpdate to increase retention of an image consider duplicating a new image.
5. Monitor frozen tapes and troubleshoot the cause in order to get them back in circulation