Polling Netbackup with Tape Library

[Arturo_Lopez]

Hi all,

I have an issue with a tape library, and the technicians of this library tell me that he needs to know if netbackup is make a polling all the time.

He says that on the tape library log has been detected an activiy out of normal.And the polling can proceed of Netbackup.

I need to know, how netbackup use the polling to discover drive, tapes ...
Is it posible that netbackup is make  all  the time a polling to the tape library?


Netbackup version : 6.5.6
SO : Solaris 9


Thanks

[Mark_Solutions]

NetBackup will check the status of the tape drives but it is normally Windows Media Servers that can cause this when the Tape Unit Ready (TUR) has not been disabled

Do you have any Windows Media Servers accessing the tape drives?

I am assuming that you mean the SCSI interation with the drives?

Are they Shared drives - if so their status can get checked more regularly i believe

Give us a little more details on your setup and what exactly you are seeing

[mph999]

It depends what you mean by polling, and are you talking about 'polling' the tape drives or the actual robot.

polling = some scsi command

Looking on my VTL, I see the following every few seconds

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1018]: ssc_tur(): Test Unit Ready (481) ** : No, No tape loaded

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1018]: completeSCSICommand(): OP s/n: (481), sz: 0, sam_status: 2

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1018]: completeSCSICommand(): [Key/ASC/ASCQ] [02 3a 00]

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: CDB (482) 1d 00 00 00 00 00

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: spc_send_diagnostics(): SEND DIAGNOSTICS (482) **

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: completeSCSICommand(): OP s/n: (482), sz: 0, sam_status: 0

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: CDB (483) 00 00 00 00 00 00

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: mkSenseBuf(): SENSE [Key/ASC/ASCQ] [02 3a 00]

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: ssc_tur(): Test Unit Ready (483) ** : No, No tape loaded

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: completeSCSICommand(): OP s/n: (483), sz: 0, sam_status: 2

Jun 13 00:47:47 nbvtl-00 vtltape[1014]: completeSCSICommand(): [Key/ASC/ASCQ] [02 3a 00]

So the media server is sending TUR approx every 15 seconds - to the drives.

From what I can tell, at idle (no jobs running) we don;t send much to the library, just the odd mode sense.

Martin

[mph999]

Note to add, I am seeing TUR from a Linux server, not Windows ...

[Arturo_Lopez]

Hi Mark,

On response you:

Do you have any Windows Media Servers accessing the tape drives?

There aren't any Windows Media Server.

I am assuming that you mean the SCSI interation with the drives?

Yes all drives are SCSI

What I want to know is if Netbackup this all the time asking the tape library. We have commented that the drive of the library are receiving many requests and asked if it was possible outside netbackup.

This question we get is no tape loaded into the drives. They believe that netbackup asked this all the time.

My question then is, whether it is possible netbackup this wondering all the time. Or does netbackup to ask the library.

[Arturo_Lopez]

Martin Thanks,

What command are you using for your output?

[mph999]

I'm just looking in the VTL logs

"What I want to know is if Netbackup this all the time asking the tape library. We have commented that the drive of the library are receiving many requests and asked if it was possible outside netbackup."

OK, that it was I see also.  When I stop NBU the requests stop also.  If I had some other machine seeing the drives, that was sending scsi commands, sure, it is possible outside NBU.

When loading a tape, we don't the library very much, most of the requests goto the drives.

Martin

[Mark_Solutions]

This sort of covers what NetBackup does in a roundabout way - and even a way of stopping it, though I am not sure that is a good idea!:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH153079