Help with importing tapes in Netbackup 7.0

[ali_hassan]

Hello Guys,

I need help in importing tapes into a netbackup server for restore, I have about 16 barcoded tapes which we used to backup about 13TB of data from a file server which used its own netbackup server.

Now that that server has been decommsioned we need to restore the data from these tapes to an alternate location, so I loaded the tapes in my libarary and inventored them in Netbackup and it read all the barcodes but what i noticed was that the "Media Id" and the "Barcode" naming convention were a little different and this is giving me issues with importing the tapes under the "Catalog" menu using Action --> Initiate import.

Media ID      Barcode

M090L4       DHM090L4

M091L4       DHM091L4

M092L4       DHM092L4

Above is an example of what i am seeing and this is the same for all the 16 tapes that I have inventoried, when I perform the first Phase of the import by using this article http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH43584 and in the Media ID option I first tried putting in "M090L4" and it failed saying it needs "DHM090L4" so I tried it again and this time under Media ID i entered "DHM090L4" and it failed again saying that it is not added in the volume manager or something like that.

Can anyone of you help me out here as to what needs to be done as this is my first time importing tapes from a different netbackup server.

Thanks

A 

[ali_hassan]

Just as a follow up I read a liitle bit about the issue and it says that I need to change my Media Id generation code?

So I went to the place where we Inventory in netbackup and clicked on "Advance Options"  then the "Media ID Generation" tab

Under this I see a Media id Generation rule listed as "3:4:5:6:7:8:"  (No idea what this means!)

Also in case i have to modify this rule and inventory again wont this affect the rest of the tapes in the libarary becasue I have tapes in the library besides these restore tapes which are used for my daily file and exchange backups.

Dont realy want to mess them up by doing something wrong!

[Will_Restore]

example rule above skips the first two characters and uses the next six for the generated mediaID

usually you can only use six characters total, depends on the library, but in your case try "1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8"  and see if that works

[sksujeet · Accepted solution]

If I understood it correctly you first tried the inventory and by default it shows

Media ID      Barcode

M090L4       DHM090L4

M091L4       DHM091L4

M092L4       DHM092L4

Netbackup by default reads the last 6 character so that is deafult behaviour. Then you tried Media id Generation rule listed as "3:4:5:6:7:8" in that case the Media ID will be same as default.

Media ID      Barcode

M090L4       DHM090L4

M091L4       DHM091L4

Please try 1:2:3:4:5:6 as Media Id Generation rule, it will read the first 6 character and provide the output as such:

Media ID      Barcode

DHM090      DHM090L4

DHM091      DHM091L4

Also in case i have to modify this rule and inventory again wont this affect the rest of the tapes in the libarary becasue I have tapes in the library besides these restore tapes which are used for my daily file and exchange backups.

It will change the Media ID for the new tapes that are inventoried in the library so please REMOVE MEDIA ID generation rule immediately once you are done with your old tapes inventory.

If above doesn't resolve your issue please provide below details:

1> Were you using any media id generation rule in your current environment?

2>In your current environment how is your media id and barcode looks?

3> By any chance do you know the media id and barcode used in your old environment?

Actually the media Id on the tape is not matching the external media and that is causing this issue. If you are able to answer above question we can help you to resolve it faster.

[ali_hassan]

Hi Saaz,

I know what you mean now and why was the D and H missing in my media iD, i judt didnt know what those numbers meant when I looked at that generation code and if I modify that to 1 2 3 4 5 6 it should work but i have a question before i do this hopefully you can help :)

Here is what I need to do (How I understood it...)

Delete the 16 tapes manually in the netbackup inventory by right clicking and selecting delete

Change the default media generation code to 1:2:3:4:5:6

Inventory again (hopefully it will read the 16 tapes again and give me matching media Id's and barcodes)

Once confirmed try to "Initiate Iimport" again under the Catalog menu and see what happens.

Now one last question kinda silly but just want to make sure... when I delete my 16 tapes and change the generation code and inventory again.. will the "Media Id's" for the existing tapes also change (The tapes which belong to this libarary)?

[ali_hassan]

Done!

I deleted the tapes and changed th Media Id and re-inventoried and this time all looks good and my old  tapes were un-touched,,,,

I will try and Iniate Import now and see how it goes....

[sksujeet]

You are on target.

Now one last question kinda silly but just want to make sure... when I delete my 16 tapes and change the generation code and inventory again.. will the "Media Id's" for the existing tapes also change (The tapes which belong to this libarary)?

Nope, it will only change the media ids for your 16 tapes, if you put more then definately it will change for those as well. Well what i mean to say is the media id generation rule will be effective from now onwards for all the tapes that you will do the inevntory. So please make sure you remove the GENERATION RULE immediately once you are done with the inventory of 16 tapes

[BTLOMS]

if you change the default rule, wont it change the media ID for ALL the tapes you currently have in the robot ?

[ali_hassan]

Hi Sanjeev,

As sazz rightly pointed out it will only change for the new tapes you inventory and I can confirm that because I just did it before  writing this comment :)

Also I changed the rule back to the old one I had which is 3:4:5:6:7:8

I have initiated the import and its "Seeking" right now...(fingers crossed)

[ali_hassan]

I imported the first tape and it successfully completed but the total size of the tape still shows up as zero KB.

Now i have to sit and import the rest of the 15 tapes and then go and perform "Phase 2" which as I understand takes forever and knowing that my total data is 13TB.. i am going to be stuck for quite sometime doing this!

Thanks a lot guys!

[Will_Restore]

Right, Phase 1 just reads the header and is pretty quick, Phase 2 reads in the full image info and takes as long as it takes based on the content.