Expiring backup image and delete its data from tape

[cc1702004]

Hello,

I need some help. Currently we are backing up customer data using shared tapes. This mean a tape can store backup for few customers. Now one customer wants it backups to be removed/deleted from a tape. Can someone advice me whether it is possible to delete on data of these backup images and not all the data on the tape. I like to understand if I just issue a bpexpdat be sufficient ?

\bpexpdate -recalculate -backupid backup_id -d 0 -client name - M master_server

We only want to ensure that the customer data is deleted from the tape and not deleting other customer data.other customer data backup image will need to be retained in the tape. Will appreciate if someone can help to advice how this can be done ?

[Mouse]

No, it is not sufficient.

NBU just expires the catalog entry related to the backup image in question and never erases the tape - it takes more than 3-4 hours for the entire tape to be fully erased these days.

If you need that level of assurance, you would need to duplicate all other images from the tape elsewhere and erase the tape outside of NBU.

Even re-labeling the tape with NBU won't help as it just erases the header, the tar files on tape will be still recoverable, been there done that.

[Nicolai]

Mouse is right.

If you need to fulfill that kind of request, consider to use Netbackup KMS tape encryption, where each customer has it's own volume pool. Then deleting customer data is just a question of deleting the encryption key from Netbackup to render all tape for that customer unusable.