Need help to configure tapes and policies

[jason1325]

Hi,

I really need some help here.
I am running Veritas Netbackup 6.5.4 on Unix.
I am trying to set up the netbackup policies and media tapes to use.

The setup is like this:
I have a total of 7 tapes:
Day001 -(Full backup daily)-monday
Day002 -(Full backup daily) -tuesday
Day003 -(Full backup daily)-wednesday
Day004 -(Full backup daily)-thursday
Day005 -(Full backup daily)-friday
Week01- (Full backup saturday)
Week02- (Full backup sunday)

I have daily full backup running from monday to friday, and weekly backup for saturday and sunday. I have a tape library and I intend to leave all 7 tapes in the library.

Question is, how do I configure the tapes to a particular day?

Example: Day001 to be used for monday, and Day002 to be use for tuesday backup.

I intend to setup a daily volume pool and place (Day001, Day002, Day003, Day004, Day005) into the volume pool, and weekly volume pool for (Week01 and Week02)
But when the daily backup policy calls for the media and all 5 tapes in the library are available, will it just randomly use any available tapes in the volume pool?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Rgds
Jas

[rjrumfelt]

Would be to set up a volume pool for each day, and set each schedule up to use that day's volume pool.

[Andy_Welburn]

would be to have a different volume pool for each day & a different schedule for each day that is associated with the appropriate pool.

In our set up, most (if not all) policies have Sun to Fri differential schedules using volume pool override to point to the appropriate Sun to Fri pool. A Sat cumulative schedule pointing to a Sat volume pool & a Monthly full pointing to a monthly volume pool.

[Andy_Welburn]

;)

[rjrumfelt]

Why are you only dealing with 7 tapes?  This to me seems like an administrative nightmare, because you will constantly have to worry about running out of a tape for a given day, especially since it sounds like you are not going to be utilizing a scratch pool.

[stu52]

Wow...this just brings up more questions.

You say:  "I have a tape library and I intend to leave all 7 tapes in the library."

Aside from having the tape library mount your tapes for you, what's the point of leaving them in the library?  What happens in the event of a disaster?  Then your tapes don't do you any good at all.

Does this library have room for more than 7 tapes or is that all you're putting in it?

Why do you want to restrict your daily backup to only use a specific tape for that day?  Is it so that YOU know by looking at the tape that your Monday backup is on the tape labeled "DAY001"?  There are reports that can tell you which backups are on which tapes.

Does your library have a barcode reader?  Or is this just a tape "stacker" and not a library?

[jason1325]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Stu52: Yes, my library has a barcode reader. I have a total of only 14 tapes to work with, so I was thinking of off-site 7 tapes and use the other 7 tapes per week. The reason for restricting the tapes to a specific day is, because I want the all the tapes usage to be even, and if I want to restore for any data, I would just restore from the tape of that particular day.

Or would there be a bettter way to work with the 14 tapes given that I would need to run daily full and weekly full backup.

[stu52]

make things as simple as possible.  Don't restrict yourself to thinking that a given day's backup should be restricted to a particular tape.  Just set up as few volume pools as you can logically get away with.  For example, if you are going to just send off the weekly full backups you can have the following voilume pools:

-- Daily-Full-Onsite  (retention 2 weeks)
-- Weekly-Full-Onsite  (retention 4 weeks)
-- Weelky -Full-Offsite  (retention 6 months)
-- Scratch
-- NetBackup (used for catalog backup...you might want a special barcode for this)

The above is just an example, your requirements might make for different retentions.  Let NetBackup tell you which tape you need when you restore.

You didn't say how long you need to retain the daily & weekly backups.

Let NetBackup manage the tapes.  Don't worry so much about having even tape usage....you might actually be creating more problems if you set things up to artificially restrict each day of the week to a different tape.  (What happens when a backup starts on one day and finishes after midnight?)

You ONLY HAVE 14 TAPES total to work with??? 

Yikes!! Is there no budget for buying tapes?  How long do you want to send tapes offsite for DR purposes?  One day? 

You need to take that into consideration when planning for the number of tapes you need.

[MariusD · Accepted solution]

Hi,

What you can try (this scenario works to me):

Create this pools:  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Weekly, Weekly_Offsite and Scratch. Put all your tapes in Scratch pool and let the Netbackup to work for you.

Create one type (ex: MS-Window-NT) Policy with 6 Schedules (this name: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Weekly).

Schedules "Monday-Friday" with 6 day retation and "override policy volumes pool" to Mo-Fr pools. Monday schedule "override policy volumes pool" to Monday pool and "start window" set also to Monday. Tuesday schedule "override policy volumes pool" to Tuesday pool and "start window" set also to Tuesday....and so on.

For Schedule "Weekly" configure "Multiple copies". One copy set to Weekly pool and another set to Weekly_Offsite pool with same retation 27 Days and "start windows" set to Saturday.

And from now let the Netbackup do work.

After each Back-up day you must  have in each daily pools one or more tapes (depends how big is the volume of back-up) with back-up's from that day. After a weekly back-up you must have tapes in Weekly pool and in Weekly_Offsite pool.

Sorry I can't explain better, but  I hope you got something.

[jason1325]

Thanks Stu52,

That was really helpful.

I will be creating a few volume pool and let Netbackup decides which media to use instead of restricting it to certain media.

Is it a good practise to place a few tapes into the scratch_pool just in case the availablitiy of the media in the other pools runs out?

Rgds

[Andy_Welburn]

We always concentrate on the number of tapes in the Scratch Pool. At the end of the day it's the only one you really need to worry about.

[jason1325]

Hi Marius,

Thanks for your suggestions.

Your approach is really a work-around.

[stu52]

Jason,

make sure that you set your barcode rules for the library so that when you put new tapes in the library and do an inventory, the tapes automatically go into the Scratch pool instead of the NetBackup pool.

Here's a thread on that subject:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/new-tapes-going-netbackup-pool-instead-scratch-pool

[Andy_Welburn]

But found that these barcode rules are only applicable to the Admin Console where they were originally set up - so you will need to recreate same for each Admin Console that you are liable to Inventory the robot from (I believe there is a config file that could be xferred, was on another post sometime back - will have a quick look - unless that was for something else!)

***EDIT***
Can't find proof of this concept!! Have just checked on our various Admin Consoles & they do all have the same Barcode Rule set up. We're running 6.5.x so it may've been earlier versions that this was an issue, or possibly Media ID Generation Rules, not sure.