NBU6MP3:How can I automatically move volumes between pools using vault?

[michael_kaishar]

Hello

We currently have nbu6mp3 and vault. We have the following volume pools in addition to the default volume pools: win-empty and win-offsite.

We run disk backups and then run vault to offsite tapes. What I want to do is to be able to pull tapes out of win-empty volume pool, run vault, then have vault dump the tape into the win-offsite volume pool. The reason for this is because we have two types of barcodes WNxxxxL3 and UXxxxxL3 differentiating between windows tapes and unix tapes. We have a windows master/media server and a unix media server.

Is this a possibility with nbu?

Thanks in advance
Michael Kaishar
Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union

[DavidParker]

Michael,
If your Win-Empty pool is setup as the 'Scratch' pool, then Vault will pull volumes from there when it needs them.
What you would do is, in your Vault Duplication step, specify the write to volume pool as Win-Offsite. When Vault runs and needs a tape, it will pull one from the scratch pool and assign it to the Win-Offsite pool.

Hope that helps ...

[michael_kaishar]

Hi

We already have a scratch pool dedicated. What I wanted to do was create the following:

There would be a barcode rule to read in UXxxxxL3 Tapes to go to UX-Empty Pool and there would be another barcode rule to read WNxxxxL3 to go to Win-Empty Pool.

Once the vault runs depending on the UX or Windows vaulting process it will pull tapes accordingly from the Win-Empty and then once it is done with vaulting it would dump it into Win-Offsite Pool. Same for UX, it will pull from UX-Empty Pool for Unix Vaults and dump into UX-Offsite Pool once vault is done. Remember again that we already have a scratch pool specified, and you can only have one scratch pool per EMM db.

Thanks in advance

[DavidParker]

Michael,
I don't think that Vault can do what you're asking it to do.
All you can specify in the Duplication step is what volume pool that the Vault will write to; it will pull tapes (when it needs them) from the Scratch pool.

Do you send your tapes to different offsite locations depend on OS or something? What quantity of tapes are we talking? Are you segregating all your backups based on OS, I'm guessing?

Personally, I'd recommend 1 generic offsite pool instead of 2.

Your idea may be possible with some serious tweaking, but the reasoning behind it escapes me. What are you trying to accomplish with this setup?

[michael_kaishar]

Hi and Thank You for your responses.

The reason I have it set up this way is that we bought so many LTO3 tapes with a barcode for windows and a barcode for hp-ux. We wanted to visually distinguish between windows media and hp-ux media. Our investment in separating barcodes and I wanted to find out how to be able to leverage this.

Is it possible then to intermix WNxxxxL3 media and UXxxxxL3 media within the scratch pool, then somehow tell my vaulting profile to pull WNxxxxL3 tapes for windows vaulting and UXxxxxL3 for HP-UX vaulting?

We wanted to split our backups to HP-UX going to the UXxxxxL3 media and Windows to go to WNxxxxL3 media.

[Chia_Tan_Beng]

> Hi and Thank You for your responses.
>
> The reason I have it set up this way is that we
> bought so many LTO3 tapes with a barcode for windows
> and a barcode for hp-ux. We wanted to visually
> distinguish between windows media and hp-ux media.
> Our investment in separating barcodes and I wanted
> to find out how to be able to leverage this.
>
> Is it possible then to intermix WNxxxxL3 media and
> UXxxxxL3 media within the scratch pool, then somehow
> tell my vaulting profile to pull WNxxxxL3 tapes for
> windows vaulting and UXxxxxL3 for HP-UX vaulting?
>
> We wanted to split our backups to HP-UX going to the
> UXxxxxL3 media and Windows to go to WNxxxxL3 media.

Hi Michael,

I don't think vault cater something like a barcode rule when its picking up media for duplication. The straight forward method is to move all your UXxxxxL3 and WNxxxxL3 media into the destination pool of your respective vault profile (either manually move or barcode rule when injecting new media). If you happen to eject the media, the media would return to its respective pool when is being injected. I believe this would achieve your objective as you won't want to share media between Ux and Win backups.

[DavidParker]

Won't the media return to whatever the Scratch pool is when injected? "when injecting new media", one would think that the rule would only apply to NEW media.
That's how my vault setup works.

Unless the barcode rule would override the Scratch pool at that point. If that is the case then there's your answer Michael.

Remove your X-Empty pools and put ALL of your UX tapes in your Ux-Offsite pool; do the same for the Windows tapes.

Create a media rule to assign the incoming tapes to the appropriate pool. To create a rule, use the VMRULE command (located: /volmgr/bin ). This will force all tapes coming in that match a certain string in the bar code to be put into whatever volume pool you desire.

Configure your duplications (you will need a separate profile for each type of OS) to write to the appropriate pool.

Of course, this all depends on whether the VMRULE command applies to ALL media being injected or just NEW media.

[michael_kaishar]

Hi And Thank You for your response. Yes I have barcode Rules to Read in the barcodes. For HP-UX and Barcode starting with UX characters dump into UX-Empty. And for windows I have it to read in WN characters and dump them into Win-Empty. I also have an HP-UX-Offsite pool and a win-offsite pool. In vault I would pull from the win-empty, and then eject and logically assign to win-offsite pool to designate that the media is offsite and it is easier for our backup operators to just go into the win-empty media pool and look at the latest assigned media in that pool and just open up the library and pull those tapes out. Again Thank You for your help.

[DavidParker]

Michael,
You should let Vault manage the volume pool for the tapes it uses itself (you shouldn't change them manually after the vault has run; you may confuse the media manager when it attempts to 'return' the tapes).

Also, Vault will automatically move the volumes it uses into a different Volume Group (different than a pool) that was specified that the Vault could use; this will designate the volumes for you automatically.

Also, by 'open up the library and remove those tapes' do you mean they actually open the library itself and remove the tapes? You should use Veritas's Eject Volume From Robot feature instead.

Finally, if any of us have been of assistance, please feel free to assign some points to that person (click on either 'Helpful' or 'Correct' next to someone's name on their post).

DP

[Chia_Tan_Beng]

The barcode rule applies to newly injected media only.
When one manually move media from Scratch pool to another pool (e.g. UX-Empty), and the media was ejected after backup, it would goes back to the pool it where it was from during the inject, in this case UN-Empty pool, even if all the images within media are expired.

I'm not sure what you mean by "logically assign to win-offsite pool" but isn't it true that changing of volume pool to an assigned media is not possible?