How Can I limit a Backup Policy to X amount of tape drives?

[jmanini]

I've been reading allot about this and getting many different answers so I'm looking for clarity on the question above. I have a Policy that only has one client but there is a lot of data. When I kick the policy off it will monopolize the 10 LTO5 tape drives that I have. This large backup is low on importance but needs to get done monthly.

NetBackup 7.1.0.3 Windows Master\Media

NetBackup 7.1.0.3 Media

Thank You

[Nicolai]

Set "Limit jobs per policy" in the policy for the server. All streams from the server will start, but only the configured number in "Limit per jobs policy" will go active. 

Limit jobs per policy

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO34477

[mph999]

I agree with Nicolai - also, if you disable allow multiple streams in the policy, you will only send one steam, when then can only go to one drive, so this would work as a solution also.

Martin

[Marianne]

There is a good section in older versions of NBU Admin Guide II explaining Multiplexing, multistreaming policy limits, etc and how jobs are assigned to drives. For some or other reason I cannot find this section in 7.1 manuals, although still very relevant.

See chapter 1 of NBU 6.5 Admin Guide II for Windows http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH52804

[Mark_Solutions]

Also, if you have lots of other clients and policies running you can just limit the number of jobs for the client itself In that way you can leave its policy(ies) unlimited but restrict how many go active for it Just add it to the Master servers host properties - Client attributes section and set how many jobs it is able to do In that way if it has 2 policies with 20 streams in each it will limit it to running say 5 jobs at any one time As soon as one stream finishes another stream will be able to go active Hope this helps

[J_H_Is_gone · Accepted solution]

you can have a lot of storage units - and they can be more than just the number of tape drives you have.

If you want to make sure the a policy uses only 1 drive (like the hot catalog backup)

then create a storage unit of just 1 tape drive and have the policy use that storage unit.

[mph999]

I love NetBackup ...so many differnet ways to do exactly the same thing ....

[jmanini]

I agree there are many ways to do this :) I chose this way since it was fast and clean and forces the policy to use how many drives I say

Thank You

[jpb2]

Don't forget about MPX value, if you MPX 4 it will put 4 streams on the same drive. So if you limit jobs per policy to 8 and MPX at 4, two drives will be used.