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Expiring media from an old Media Server

Timothy_Payne
Level 4
We have media that is still assigned in a volume pool from a previous Media Server. Does anyone have any ideas on how to de-assign them so we can delete the media?
7 REPLIES 7

AKopel
Level 6
First of all, do you need the media for restores? You might be better off reassigning them to a current media server.
Regardless, this artical explains decommisioning a media server and worked well for us.
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/266720.htm

Timothy_Payne
Level 4
Thanks for the help, however, this article assumes that you still have the old media server, pre-shutdown which we do not have . Unfortunately, the old media server is no longer available. Our problem is that there is about 10 tapes assigned to the old media server, and cannot be expired or deleted.

Stian_Kristen2
Level 3
You have tried

-deassignbyid ?

or

bpexpdate: -m -d ?

Timothy_Payne
Level 4
When I run BPMEDIALIST I receive a:

"requested media id was not found in NB media database and/or MM volume database"

When I run BPEXPDATE -d ? I receive a:

"Access to client was not allowed"

Both these errors make sense since the old media server is no longer avalable.

Timothy_Payne
Level 4
This problem was resolved in: http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/247898.htm.

The problem was that the media id was still in VOLMGR.

Thanks for all the help

Ranjith_Kumar
Level 3
Guys,
This scenarios we faced most of the time in our client place. Enclosing below the complete procedure for this action.

1. When a media server is decommisioned the available_media report will start showing the media status as DBBACKUP
2. it is not possible to directly use this sets of tapes for other backups in the environment. Also we need to confirm whether the data is required in those set of tapes for further restore.

Enclosing 2 scenario for recovering these tapes.

A. Media still required for further restore & will bring them to scratch by NBU automatically later the images expires

Step 1. deassign the media to scratch pool first
cmd : vmquery -deassignbyid "mediaid" -p "the pool number that the media is in"
eg: vmquery -deassignbyid 000010 -p 6

Step2. This will bring the tape to scratch. Now move the tape to the preferred volume pool(weekly/monthly).

Step3. Go to catalog & do the import Phase 1 & phase 2. This will retain the images & the media available any time for restore action.

Step4. During any restore comes for this decommisioned media server, use this option " Media host override" in the Host properties --> master server --> General server
From "old media server name" To "Master/available media servername"

This will ensure the restore happens successfully. The setting will make the master server to perform any resoration on behalf of the decommisioned media server

Scenario 2 : Bring all the old tapes to scratch/Available pool

Step1. Apply the Vmquery cmd & deassign the tape.
Step2. Move the tape to scratch pool

Optional . Use bplabel command to rename the media header file. This is not actually required, but in some case u may need to use this.

Imp: The bpexpdate -m will show "requested media id was not found in NB media database and/or MM volume database"
to the following conditions
1. If the tapes are in scratch pool
2. Media in frozen/suspended state.

Hope the info what i mentioned above guys some useful solution to u

Rgs
Ranjith - Veritas Netbackup 5.0 Certified Specialist

TempoVisitor
Level 4
> Step3. Go to catalog & do the import Phase 1 & phase
> 2. This will retain the images & the media available
> any time for restore action.

In fact, when you import expired images, they are added back to the images catalog for a duration that starts at the date of the importation and lasts until the Retention Period that was orignilay used for the backup.

Consider the retention period as indexes from 0 to 24 : they ar written on the images metadata on the tapes. When you import an image made with a retention of 2 weeks (Ret Period Index 1), on a server where you have modified the default Retention Level to have the Index 1 pointing on ... 267 days, for example, the image imported will last 267 days from the date of the importation.

After that delay, it's expired 'again' and the media shown IMPORTED will then be expired, unassigned and back to Scratch.

(if the expired image was on a media with still active images, the importation of the images does not create the flag IMPORTED on the media, because it's already in the media database, but the expiration date of the media might still be modified by this second youth.)