NetBackup Interface

[nbuser4ED]

Hi All,

I have previously used Backup Exec. With a new installation I am now using NetBackup 6.5.4 Enterprise Version. I have a stand alone tape drive. I am a bit confused the way Netbackup interface works.

In BE I had no worries of overwriting my previous day tape if I ever left it in the tape drive for next evening. BE would always wait for the proper tape to be inserted. I wonder if there is any such option in NB!

I also want NB to erase whatever is on the tape, and write a new image. I would use a different tape for every weekday, thus appending images will run me out of space on a tape. How to accomplish this?

Will appreciate help and education by any kind gurus out there.

[rishi_rich]

Hello,

You can use your tape unless and untill it will be full by data,you have assign that tape to perticular volume group and then mention that tape in policy to use only that volume group for that peticular tape  tape.I hope you must be using robot and LTO tapes with barcodes.

 For earsing tape you can rum command by going to intsallpath i.e if linux machine /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd and run command ./bpexpdate -d 0 -ev Barcode no ,after running this command you will able to erase contain of tape

[Ialahmad]

RUN Comamand

./bpexpdate -d 0 -m "MediaID"  --forace

-d 0 = current date

 

[nbuser4ED]

Thanks Rishi for the reply and Lalahmad for the correct syntax.

I am afraid I was not able to put my questions properly:

What I wanted to say is, how can I configure NBU to overwrite existing tape and NOT append to the existing data! I am using standalone tape drive and don't want NB to wait for me to insert new tape. My backup data, (around 200~300GB) would fit on one tape, if it appends, the tape will fill up too soon.

[SteveYu]

As far as I know the previous answers with "bpexpdate" would work if executed prior to the backup. You would probably need to script that.

I thought about your question some and the way I might approach your answer is to set a custom data retention for your backups. For example why not set the data retention for 24 hours so the data is held for that time period then "erased" from netbackup. This will cause the tape to be recycled and you will not need to manually let netbackup know a tape is available for use.

As a side note Netbackup is mainly used with robotic libraries so you may find some things more difficult in Netbackup than in BE. I believe this is especially true with media management.

[nbuser4ED]

Thanks IMO. I got the message. Your reply makes complete sense.

[Will_Restore]

>>In BE I had no worries of overwriting my previous day tape if I ever left it in the tape drive for next evening. BE would always wait for the proper tape to be inserted. I wonder if there is any such option in NB!

You could set up separate Schedules for each day and direct them to use specific Volume Pool.  Example: Schedule Name "Monday", Destination, Override policy volume pool: "Day1_pool"


>>I also want NB to erase whatever is on the tape, and write a new image. I would use a different tape for every weekday, thus appending images will run me out of space on a tape. How to accomplish this?

As Steve suggests, your Schedule Retention determines when the tape image expires and can be reused (overwritten), though you'd probably want it 1 Week (or maybe 6 Days) instead of  24 Hours.


So, you see, in NB you can have no worries too!  :)

[Omar_Villa]

Netbackup doesnt place multiple retentions per media by default, you need to change this so mixes different images and retentions.

ALLOW_MULTIPLE_RETENTIONS_PER_MEDIA
The ALLOW_MULTIPLE_RETENTIONS_PER_MEDIA entry allows NetBackup to mix retention levels on media. Default: This option is not present and each volume can contain backups of one retention level.
This option can be set using either of the following methods:

Changing the Enable standalone drive extension property in the Media host properties. (Default: enabled.) For more information, see Chapter 7 of the NetBackup Administrator’s Guide, Volume I.

By using the nbemmcmd command. (See NetBackup Commands for UNIX and Linux.)


Regards

[J_H_Is_gone]

Let us start with this question:
" also want NB to erase whatever is on the tape, and write a new image. I would use a different tape for every weekday, thus appending images will run me out of space on a tape. How to accomplish this? "


You make a backup Monday night and you have a 1 week retention - after the backup to remove the tape and it goes off site.... it comes back - and you want to use it again.  You would NOT put the tape back in the drive until all the images on the tape have expired - now that could be that they won't expire until some time Monday NIGHT of the second week.   So you would want to wait till Tuesday to reuse this tape or expire all the images on the tape by cli -
bpexpdate -m <mediaid> -d 0 
that command will expire all the images on that tape now - making it a scratch.
or
You could set your retention to 6 days -
Me - as my tapes are not labeled mon/tue/wed/thur - but by number I just wait for one day past  retention before I use the tapes again that way I know they are expired.
If all images on the tape have expired (you can see this in the gui   - media  see time assigned - if blank then all the images have expired and the tape can be considered a scratch tape ready for use - when next used - NB will write from the BOT.


Now on to the other issue

"In BE I had no worries of overwriting my previous day tape if I ever left it in the tape drive for next evening. BE would always wait for the proper tape to be inserted. I wonder if there is any such option in NB!"

If you have a policy with a weeknight schedule for 1 week retention - and it is using volume pool LTO4(just for a name) if Monday's tape is still in the drive Tuesday night - yes it will append to that tape because NB does allow same retentions on the same tape (both Monday and Tuesday have a 1 week retention - other wise know as level 0 (see properties of master server - retention periods)
that is just the nature of NB.

You can work around this -
set up a schedule and volume pool for each day of the week so Tuesday night it would not use the tape coming out of Monday's volume pool.
- set up 4 retention periods that are all 1 week but have different level numbers - this way it could use the same volume pool but for the week each tape would have a different retention level on it and would not mix them (even though they have the same retention time)