How to recycle the tapes........?

[koya]

Hello,

could any one please help me out on this

how to recycle normal backup tapes for new backups..?

we have 2 types of retention levels 5,8

5 is for 3months

8 is for 2 years(FULL)

how to find out the tapes which were having expired images..(as we dont have vault)

let me know if you need more on same..

thanks

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi,

You dont have to recycle tape by yourself, NBU will take care of it for you (unless something is not working). You can use the available_media.cmd script located in your netbackup/bin/goodies folder to produce a report of the media that are available. It will also show you whic other tapes are still in use, their current status, FULL/FROZEN etc.

You can also use bpmedialist -summary to give you a report of the media that is currently assigned, and at the end of each media host it will show you when then sets of media will become available.

If you use bpmedialist, any tapes list by it are still active and not expired. Hence, any media you dont see there will be available (unless they're FROZEN).

If you have a scratch pool configured NBU will place available media in their for you.

R

[koya]

Hi,

thanks for your responce..

how to know tapes which were having expired images..?

[RiaanBadenhorst]

No you dont need to relabel.

Images are expired in the netbackup catalog, the content on the media is not erased once an image is expired in the catalog. When a tape has "expired images" on, and its available to be re-used, netbackup simply starts to write on it from the beginning.

Any tapes listed as AVAILABLE by the available_media script will have "expired images" on. You dont have to do anything to them though, unless you actually made a mistake with your retention period, and you would like to retain the data on them. Then you'll need to write-protect the media, and import the backup image again.

R

[koya]

okay

only we need to insert the tapes which are having status Available in .../goodies/available_media..........

and then have to run vmupdate..

NBU will treat that tape as a new one...right ?

please advise me if i miss any thing

Thanks

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Correct

[koya]

Thanksa for your great support..!

[Zahid_Haseeb]

Netbackup Server itself expire images as per your retention mentioned in policy.

 If you want to expire images to use for other pool/backup and you want to expire backup images run the below command under programFiles\Veritas\Netbackup\bin\admincmd

bpexpdate -d 0 -m MEDIA-ID

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Koya, please refrain from using that command (bpexpdate -m MEDIAID -d 0) unless instructed by support, or you know what the impact is. It will remove all the images located on that tape from the NBU catalog, and once thats done, NBU will write on it again. If you had data/backup images on such a tape they will be lost and irretrrievable.

R

[koya]

bash-2.05b$ sudo ../goodies/available_media

Z05005

DLT3     NONE

-

-

-

-     -

AVAILABLE

bash-2.05b$ sudo ./bpimmedia -mediaid Z05005 -U | more
Password:
no entity was found

bash-2.05b$ sudo ../../../volmgr/bin/vmquery -m Z05005
================================================================================
media ID:              Z05005
media type:            DLT cartridge tape 3 (26)
barcode:               Z05005
media description:     Added by Media Manager
volume pool:           Backup (4)
robot type:            NONE - Not Robotic (0)
volume group:          ---
vault name:            ---
vault sent date:       ---
vault return date:     ---
vault slot:            ---
vault session id:      ---
vault container id:    -
created:               Tue Feb 23 16:53:10 2010
assigned:              ---
last mounted:          Tue Mar 02 18:00:37 2010
first mount:           Thu Feb 25 02:05:59 2010
expiration date:       ---
number of mounts:      4
max mounts allowed:    ---
================================================================================
bash-2.05b$

it seems to images had expired

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Correct,

the tape is AVIALABLE but not in the robot  (NONE)

Its not listed in bpimmedia cause its considered to be scratch.

Vmquery shows its not assigned, assigned would mean it has images which are not expired.

You can insert and inventory. Check that it goes to scratch, and then run the backup.

[J_H_Is_gone]

Today go to the gui and go to Media.

Sort on Data Expiration-

Today is 11/2/2010 - look for tapes that will expire between 11/2/2010 and 11/3/2010  (work our the time as tow hen you plan on pulling tapes each day)

So pull these tapes,  they should all be expired by tomorrow and can go back in.

tomorrow look for tapes between 11/3/2010 and 11/4/2010 and those tapes can go in on the 4th.

--------

Now most people use off-site storage for their tapes.

(I do not use vault)

So when I do my backups, this morning I will eject all those tapes from the library.

I will calculate 2 weeks so tapes made last night on 11/1/2010 will be expired on 11/15 and be ready to go back into the robot on 11/16, so I give them a description of 11/15/2010 when I send them off-site and I give them a return date of 11/15/2010.

So on 11/15/2010 those tapes are returned to me, and I will put them in the robot on the morning of the 16th.

So you really need to come up with a procedure to know when your tapes are expiring and when to put the back into the robot.