Pause SLP writes to tape for quick restores?

[Steve_Law]

Hi,

Our customer is visiting tomorrow to audit our tape processes and wants to see a few restores performed. The problem is our writes to tape are relatively slow (only a 1gigabit LAN), we have four tape drives and individual SLPs can use a single tape drive for hours at a time. I need a way to pause all SLP writes to tape so a tape drive is freed up for a restore. I've tried this command to deactivate use of the tape drive STU for SLPs:

nbstlutil inactive -destination bc11n1v1-hcart-robot-tld-2

This appears to have pasued all SLPs as there is no longer any writing to tape going on, but the SLPs are still active and the restore is just sitting there.

Am I doing this wrong? What's the best way to quickly free up a tape drive without cancelling an SLP?

We're on Netbackup Enterprise 7.5.0.6.

Thanks

[Marianne]

What storage is used for backups (copy 1 image)?

If disk, there is no need to pause duplications. Restore can be done from disk while duplication is active.

If VTL, sorry. Cannot be done. 

I have asked in this IDEA for the ability to suspend active duplications:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/ideas/storage-lifecycle-policies-slp-scheduling-windows-are-... 

This feature was not included in NBU 7.6 SLP enhancements.

[sdo]

Pausing won't immediately free up a tape drive.  A few hours before the customer arrives, reduce the concurrent write drive count of teh storage unit (e.g. reduce from 4 to 3) so that one drive is free for restores by the time the customer arrives on site.

[Steve_Law]

Thanks Marianne but this is a tape audit so I need to restore from tape. Our disk retention is only 6 weeks anyway so any backups older than that must come from tape.

[Steve_Law]

Well that would work! Thanks.

 

[Nicolai]

Please consider to mark SDO suggestion as a "solution" if it solved your issue.

[Steve_Law]

In that case, what does nbstlutil inactive -destination bc11n1v1-hcart-robot-tld-2 actually do?

I need to reset the tape drives on one site, could I use the above to pause the SLPs, reset the drives then unpause the SLPs?

[sdo · Accepted solution]

Pausing an SLP stops any new SLP jobs from being queued for that particular SLP definition/policy.  It does not stop/pause any currently active jobs which themselves may still contain zero, one, or more "images" yet to be duplicated/replicated/managed.

[Steve_Law]

Thanks people!

[Genericus]

You might also shrink the number of partially full tapes to match, because I am pretty sure you will need to re-expand the storage unit to allow the restore to use it. Don't want a queued dupication to grab it!