Offsite media testing plan

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Hi,

I've to write some kind of offsite tape testing plan. We have more than 100 tapes offsite and we would like to do some test restores. I need to document whole procedure..

If you hve wrote something like this, could you please share?

Thanks!

[sdo]

Will you be recovering a master server offsite and recovering one or more servers off-site?  Or do you just want to check that the tapes are readable?

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Basically I would like to recall 10-15% randomly selected tapes and test that tape are readable.

[Stumpr2]

Are the offsite tapes duplicates or originals?

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Duplicates...

I just want to write document containing basic steps what to do and how. We going to test whose tapes once a quarter or once a year..

[Stumpr2]

just change the primary copy to copy 2 and issue a restore.

[sdo]

I'd be tempted to recall the tapes and depending on the size of your MAP (media access port) / hopper, and how many free slots you have in your library... I would:

a) Make a note of media IDs being loaded.

b) Physically load.

c) Do an inventory (if you don't have auto inventory enabled)

d) Use GUI / Reports / "Media Contents" to test that the entire tape is readable.

e) Repeat step (d) for each media that was loaded - you may be able to run several concurrently if you have multiple drives (bare in mind you may want to keep one drive not used for possible ad hoc backups and restores)

f) When all injected media have been read, eject the media.

g) Repeat with next set of tapes from step (a).

HTH,

Regards,

Dave.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Great!

Thanks for quick answer! Do you have some kind of nice document with more details information? :D

[sdo]

Nope, but I'm sure it won't take you long :p .  Try it.  N.B. don't worry if it seems to take a long time.  When we test LTO1 with ave 200 GB on them, it takes about 2 to 3 hours each tape.

[Stumpr2]

look in the admin guide for the vault option. You can download it.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Hi,

Ok, so I'm in the progress of testing offsite tapes. I know that I can check media contents and verify all or selected images on media..

How could I restore someting from particular media? Is there the way to restore image then I know only image name?

Thanks!

[Stumpr2]

Yes, of coarse. The only true test is an actual restore.

Simply promote the duplicate copy as the new "primary" copy and issue a restore request.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Is it possible to do it in command line? The deal is that I randomly requested some tapes from offsite. I don't know exactly when images on those tape were created. Is there posibility to search catalog by image name and find out when that image was created so I could restore it form client?

Thanks!

[Stumpr2]

yes you can do it via CLI.

What Platform/OS/NBU version/MP are you running?

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

I have NB 6.0MP4 running on Win2003.

I would like at least restore image from tape to disk and if where is possibility to look inside image and restore files, what would be great!

Thanks Bob for quick response!

[Stumpr2]

VERITAS NetBackup (tm) 6.0 Commands for Windows

http://support.veritas.com/docs/279300

How to determine exactly what data is on a piece of media for a specific client

http://support.veritas.com/docs/192760

How to generate a report that includes the client name, the date of the backup, the backup class, the backup schedule and the ID of the media that contains the backup, from the command line.

http://support.veritas.com/docs/202562

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Thanks for the links..

Bob, could you please be more specific? :D

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

I meant to say, is it possible to restore images directly from tape if?

[Stumpr2]

yes you can restore directly from the tape but first you must promote the tape to be the new primary copy. Netbackup always does restores from the primary copy. There is no way around it but to have the tape be the primary copy.

[Mindaugas_Lauci]

Ok, Images on my off-site tapes are primary. What command I should use to copy that image from tape to disk? :)

Thanks