How to restore backups from a particular tape?

[smith_jones]

Hi,

I have done restores from tapes. But if I have to do restoration from a particular tape how will I proceed?

1.  Let us suppose we do backups for with 1 month retention and we want restore of a backup from the tape. We go to BAR gui and then select the source and destination and then we have to select the date of which we want restoration. Now suppose the tape is not there in the library. Then?

2.  From the Reports section I will find that ok this client data was witten to this tape on this date that I require.

I will recall the tape from say offsite and will insert the tape into the library. Now how to proceed?  Again going to BAR gui and proceed like above and it will automatiocally detect the tape taht I inserted? 

[Will_Restore]

If tape is not in the library a Pending Request will be generated.  After you insert the media you can resubmit the request in the Device Monitor section of the GUI. 

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000095665

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

When a tape is not in the library, NBU will display a message in Job Details to say that the tape is not in the library and that user action is required. It will also generate a Pending Request for the tape in Device Monitor.

Once the tape is in the library, you can open Device Monitor, click on the Pending Request and resubmit.

Alternatively, Suspend the restore job.
When the tape is in the robot, Resume the Suspended restore job.

Best to find the files/folders that you want to restore in BAR GUI and click on 'Preview Media'.
This will display a list of tapes needed for restore.
If the tapes are not in the library, you can request them from offsite location and only start the restore when the tapes are in the robot.

[watsons]

When it comes to restore, Netbackup has always been (or at least by the time I started using it)  using backup image as a base, rather than a tape.

When we say restore a file, we are looking at the backup image, not at particular tape, we just don't care what tape it is, or what mediaID... now we barely even care whether it's on disk or tape :) 

In the BAR GUI when selecting a file (or files) for restore, there is a "Preview" for you to click before restore, that would give you what tape (mediaID)  required for the restore. Then you can go to "Media" list to check where the tape is (in library or not) before hitting the restore. 

[smith_jones]

Thanks all for your inputs.

[smith_jones]

Hold Hold just a minute :)

If I have a tape (whose barcode id and etc is already specified in the library) and I want to restore the data from it, m not going into the picture of BAR GUI for now, how to do it?

I think I will first check the backup ids of the images it is containing, then I will start a duplication using these backup ids from this tape to another tape.

Am I right? Any better idea?

[Marianne]

That is not how NBU works and this is what we tried to explain in above posts.

Backups are indexed by client and date. Not by media-id.

You also understand how the restore process works as can bee seen in your opening post:

We go to BAR gui and then select the source and destination and then we have to select the date of which we want restoration. 

Why do need to restore from a specific tape? 
I have never seen a user requesting a restore from media id A00001. 
Rather a request to restore file xxxx in /yyyy folder backed up on machine zzzz last weekend....

Yes, if you want to see which backup images are on a specific tape, you can list it with 'images on tape' report to get client name and date of backup.
You then open BAR GUI to select parameters as per your opening post.

And why do you want to duplicate a tape before starting a restore?

[smith_jones]

Hi Marianne,

Sorry to bore you and others, it was just for a general knowledge that if I have a tape with so many mounts (afraid that it may become difficult to use), then we may want to duplicate its data to other (though we can restore the data and then backup it again to other tape) and discard using the old tape.

I understand the restore process. I was just looking like 3D view, looking for all the ways we can have to do one thing. Just for knowledge purpose.

Thanks.