MSDP storage unit full - duplication question

[lovethatcheese]

Hello. This is a basic question, and wanted to be sure of the official process -

I had some issues with a tape drive, so over the last week and a half, all backups are writing directly to disk (msdp pool). Now that my tape drive is back and working, I just started duplicating images from disk to tape. (catalog - duplicate - )

Ok, everything is easy so far. So once the duplication is done, how do I expire the images that were just duplicated to tape off of the disk, so that space is reallocated ? Is this done through the GUI (doesnt seem so, as I can't find it).

Is there a step that I am missing?  Thanks in advance!!

-Scott

Master / Media servers  - Win 2008 server r2 enterprise. Clients - Red Hat 6.2

[Nicolai]

How is the duplication performed - manual or by SLP ?

If you configure SLP to do the job you don't need to care as SLP will catch-up for you.

[V4]

So  i believe you need to ensure Images duplicated from Disk must get expired post successful duplication to Tape? If this is requirement, there are two possibilities with NBU you have choice lies with you for feasibility

1. Storage Life cycle policy (http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO73205)

Completely automates task for you with expire primary copy after duplication and provide higher retention to tape copy . etc 

2. From Catalog where you duplicated images, its the same GUI where you have option to expire images from DeDupe pool. However DeDupe takes stun cycle to reclaim those space , it does not reflect immediate as we see in Advanced and Basic STU

Following TN should be helpful enough

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH124914

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH147351

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH142118

Images which you just duplicated  can be searched through Catalog GUI  and it shows which copy belogs to tape an Disk. You can select Disk copy and expire it 

Hope this helps

[lovethatcheese · Accepted solution]

Captain, I believe your information is going to lead me to the promise land.

Basically, I had the SLP keeping images on disk for X amount of time, and also kept them around for longer once duplicated to tape. I now realize this is not the way to go, and am only going to keep copies on disk for maybe a month tops, and just increase retention rates on all tapes. Should keep my MSDP pool happy.

I'll verify this is what I need once at work and will mark as solution if that's the case.

[lovethatcheese]

Nicolai,

I do have these policies running SLP's...I ran into status 129 over the weekend..I wasn't totally maxed on space (high water mark was set at 94%), however, I was keeping images stored on this MSDP pool for a decent amount of time.

Seems more efficient to keep them long term on tape, and free up the space on disk (I'm not restoring a whole lot, so if I had to use tape, no biggie). Either way, I'm interested in your comment...

So once 129 errors hit, and you have SLP's defined, the problem will resolve itself? I deactivated these policies, suspended the SLP, and starting duplicating full images to tape manually...once at work tomorrow, I was going to expire the images that have been duplicated over. Will take a while with one tape drive, but if there's a more efficient way of doing this, I'm all ears?

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

You have configured MSDP as backup destination in SLPs. Right?

If so, image copies in MDSP are named Copy 1. To expire them, set search criteria in [NetBackup Mansgement]-[Catalog] to list "Copy 1" copies. Then select, right click, expire.

This expiration does not immediately clean up spaces in MSDP. If you wnt to cleanup immediately, follow this doc(alreay mentioned by captain!)

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH142118

[Mark_Solutions]

If any have not completed their lifecycle you may also have to cancel the lifecycle for you images so that you can manipulate them

Images under lifecycle control do not like to have their backup copies manually duplicated or a copy expired outside of the SLP

You may need to do some more command line work to deal fully with it all but once your SLP has been changed you should be OK in the future (remember that anything that has backed up to disk but not yet duplicated to tape will still have the "old" SLP properties attached to it.

[V4]

Scott

Following cheatsheet should be helpful in dealing with SLP

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/storage-life-cycle-cheat-sheet