MEDIA TESTING

[Joe_ab]

we have several branches across the world, the tapes for each region should be shipped to one centralized location / branch in which the tapes should be tested there then.
How can i test the media / Tapes without being able to restore or access the data ? i have some countries regulations and data should not be accessed by the other branch ... any help / suggestion ? i just need away to verify that the tapes are accessible

[Tousif]

Hi,

I think 'bpverify' command can help you in this.

Note: It will just validate the images on tape/disk. Before you run the verify the media should be available in tape library.

Article: http://www.veritas.com/docs/000110579

Thanks & Regards

[Marianne]

bpverify is to compare images on tape with images in NBU catalog. The NBU master at the "centralized location" will not have any knowledge of images on tapes from remote locations, right?

Media contents report may help.
bpmedialist -U -mcontents -m <media_id>
This will mount the tape and list header info of images on tape without importing or accessing the actual data.

Be sure to write-protect tapes and add them to a non-backup pool when you put them in the library of the centralized location.

[Tousif]

Hi,

I agree with Marianne suggestion.

Thanks & Regards,

[mph999]

If the central location is a different master server, than as Marianne suggests that master wil have no details of the images on the tapes, or in fact that tapes themselves.

The bad news, is that bpmedialist -mcontents won't work, unless the tape has a entry in the 'media database'.

There are two databases we 'talk' about regarding tapes (it's actually all part of the NBDB ) but it's kinda historic ...

volume database - this mainly relates to the physical aspects of tapes, density, location, robot slot number etc.)  Once a tape is inventoried, it remains in the volume database foreer, unless totally deleted from NBU.  vmquery command is used to list these tapes (eg vmquery -a)

media database - this relates to 'images'.  If a tape has no images and is expired, it is not in the media database.  Once a tape is selected for a job, it is given as assign time, and has an entry in the media database.  Tapes from another master will not be in the media database unless phase1 /2 imported.  bpmedialist -m <media ID> is a command that works on the media database.

As -mcontents is an option on bpmedialist command, it will not work with tapes that are not 'known' to the system.

As an alternative suggestion, /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/scsi_command -map <device file to tape drive> will completly read through a tape.  You would need to first load the tape into a drive using tpreq command.

[Marianne]

I do not have access to tapes to test this, but as far as I remember Media Contents report will mount a tape, read and report header info. Even with no mediadb entry.

[Marianne]

As usual, Martin ( @mph999 ) is 100% correct... Media Contents report only works with Assigned media.

Seems the only option will be phase1 import of tapes - only header info will be read, not actual backup data.