MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVE not working within NetBackup 6.5.3

[Patrick_Ammann]

Hi,

Weupdated to NBU 6.5.3 andnow we have the problem that the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVE directive isn't working anymore. Let me explain teh setup.

Storage-Unit-Group:

There are multiple Mediaservers in a Storage Unit Group.

• mes_01

• mes_02

for example. Both of them have local tape drives connected.

Setting the parameter "Must_USE_LOCAL_DRIVE=yes to both MediaServers should cause that the MediaServer mes_01 backups himself using his local drives and mes_02 shoudl your his local drives. (in a emergency we were abel to set the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVE to "no" so that mes_01 also could make a backup using mes_02 as a mediaserver)

after upgrading to 6.5.3, it seems that the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVES parameter uisn't working anymore. according to the manual:

Exeption to the storage unit selection criteria

The only exception to the order option indicated is in the case of a client that is also a mesiaserver with locally connected storage units. The locally available storage units take precedence over the defined sequence of storage units in the group

The storage units are configured as "priorized".

the first storage unit in the "storage unit group" always get used and the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVES parameter doesn't have any effect on the priorisation. 

Till today, this worked fine with NBU6.0MP6. Does anyone know if it is a bug ? Is there a fix available ? 

thanks for any feedback

[Nicolai]

Hi Patrick

I am on 6.5.2 but with a similar setup.

The policy that contain mes_01 and mes_02 cannot be set to "any" as this selection have higher priority than MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVE.

You may know this, but I think it was worth mentioning.

Regards

Nicolai

[ja290]

I ran into this same issue with 6.5.1, which, even after a patch, still would not work consistently. My only workaround was to create policies for each media server specifying the exact storage unit to be used.

This has been a problem for as long as I can remember (which is V3.4).

[Stumpr2]

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@ja290 wrote:

This has been a problem for as long as I can remember (which is V3.4).

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You have a long memory my friend.

[Patrick_Ammann · Accepted solution]

after some more testing i have to add some comments. i remarked that everything works like it should. only the first backup jobs were not using the local drives but afterwards, everything seems to be ok.

the strange thing is, that if you have a policy that only executes a script on the system that need to be backuped (for example if you execute a script on a DB server to start a RMAN backup), this job does run on any mediaserver in the storage group (not only on the one where the backup finally will run). since this job only executes a script on the target system - not data will be transfered in this job - it doesn't matter which mediaserver is disbplayed in the job monitor. when the backup starts later on, the correct mediaserver is used.

theefore, the MUST_USE_LOCAL_DRIVE really is used and it works like it should:-)