NetBackup Vault

[raffl]

Need some help in Vault Duplication.

NBU 7.6

1 Master server - WS 2012- not connected to tape library

3 Media Server - ws 2012 - connected to tape library with 10 drives and shared amoung 3 media server

I have lot of jobs that we ran on to the tapes, I want to duplicate all these images from tape to disk.

Configured 1 STU for tape library and have all media servers available. All the 3 Media server can see the tape library and works for backup without any issue. 

Configured 1 STU for Basic Disk. 

I want to configure NBU Vault so multiple Media server can read the tape and multiple media server write it to basic disk but that is not happening. Please help me to configure so multiple media server can read from tape and write to basic disk.

Right now only 1 Media server is reading all the images and writing, all the other Media server are idle. I want to use all of them so it would be fast.

[Marianne]

First time ever in see someone wants to duplicate from tape to disk.
Vault is actually meant for the other way round.

I also don't think that Basic Disk can be shared. As far as I know, this is a function of Advanced Disk.

PS
Are you aware that NBU 7.6.x ran out of support on 1 Feb this year?

[raffl]

Marianne:- I am doing it because old tapes to be destroy, wan everything on disk as per client. Please tell me then the right way to complete this. What are the best option as per my environment.

[Marianne]

If your customer really wants to get rid of tape, then Basic Disk is the worst possible solution.
Deduplication is the best for tapeless environment.

Speak to your local Veritas reseller to assist with dedupe sizing exercize to see if NBU appliances is an option and to assist with upgrade path.

[raffl]

We are doing this bec we no longer will do the back in this envi, only for restore. I need some help duplicating the tape to disk in better way to utilize 10 drives and 3 media server.

[Marianne]

I am not aware of any way to share the same Basic Disk.

Good luck.

[AndreaBolongaro]

How are you sharing basic disk among different media servers? 
Basic disk storage units have some limitations.

[raffl]

I can use advanced disk or other options as you suggest. Please provide me some guidance how to dupl these tapes.

[AndreaBolongaro · Accepted solution]

Best way is to use ost/dedup devices.
For basic disk you cannot share: the only way is to create a storge unit group adding  basic disks from each media server and work with water mark limits.
For sharing storage among multiple media servers you need Advanced Disk.
If you have licenses, please check AdvancedDisk Storage Solutions Guide
https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.DOC6463 and find a solution you may implement.

You have to do some study before for sizing.
I do not think vaulting could be a problem.

[Marianne]

I do not believe that Vault is the best way to duplicate a large amount of legacy tapes. 

All I can suggest is to list images on tape for each media server separately. 
If you have media sharing in the environment, this might be a challenge.

Best will be if you can separate the list of tapes manually and divide amongst the media servers.
Each media server will need its own Basic Disk STU.
(It MAY be possible to create 3 DSU's, all pointing to the same network share, but I have no idea how this will work in practice when 3 servers try to write to the same location simultaneously.)

With bpduplicate (in a script or run manually), you can specify the 'Read Media Server'. 

So, you will have a list tapes that you will run through bpduplicate for each media server, using -altreadhost <media1> -dstunit <media1-DSU>.

I can honestly not see how this can be automated. 

[raffl]

Thanks Andrea and Marianne for valable inputs. Last question before I try these optons and reading.

Can advaced disk creted on windows network share? I have a n/w share of 232 TB but that is nt a media or master.

Marianne : - As you are said Vault is not good for large legacy tapes, besides Vault and bpduplicate is there any othr best opton in NBU we can duplicate these tape images.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Please read through the Advanced Disk manual (URL in Andrea's post).
It seems that network/CIFS share is supported, but I have no experience with it.
Please verify licensing requirements before you attempt this.

Other than bpduplicate (which is good for scripting), you can use the GUI to manually select media ID and destination STU. 
The GUI does not allow the 'read host' to be specified/selected.