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Procedure to Delete a Old Tape Library

NAYAB
Level 4

Hi All, 

As i understand from the posts from other users that to delete a tape library and re-use the old tapes we should 

1) Put all tapes in to standalone mode 

2) Delete Drives

3) Delete Robots (Tape Library)

Now configure new tape library and insert all tapes inside the library and perform an inventory.

 

May i know what needs to be done additionally at the Master/Media server level as this AIX server.

 

Thanks,

Nayab

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Marianne
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Your steps are fine. 

Just confirm how the robot reads and presents barcodes to backup applications. Older robots used to present 1st 6 characters (without the L# at the end). Newer robots report all 8 characters. So, you will need to add Media Id Generation rule to use 1st 6 chars.

Hopefully your new library is IBM, as NBU no longer supports ovpass driver. See 7.6 hcl:   https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/NB_76_HCL

PS:
Please provide feedback or close off your other posts?
https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Do-i-need-to-have-my-Master-to-communicate-with-all-Vm-clients/...
https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/VMware-Machine-with-SQL-backup-failing/m-p/843708

Thanks!

View solution in original post

13 REPLIES 13

Marianne
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Your steps are fine. 

Just confirm how the robot reads and presents barcodes to backup applications. Older robots used to present 1st 6 characters (without the L# at the end). Newer robots report all 8 characters. So, you will need to add Media Id Generation rule to use 1st 6 chars.

Hopefully your new library is IBM, as NBU no longer supports ovpass driver. See 7.6 hcl:   https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/NB_76_HCL

PS:
Please provide feedback or close off your other posts?
https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Do-i-need-to-have-my-Master-to-communicate-with-all-Vm-clients/...
https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/VMware-Machine-with-SQL-backup-failing/m-p/843708

Thanks!

Hi Marianne,

Thanks for your quick reply, and thanks for reminding me about OVPASS as i was being alerted when i run through the Upgrade checklist via SORT. And i understand i need to use Atape drivers for IBM tape library. May i know in that case do i need to disable or remove some configuration from AIX after which i need to install Atape drivers.

Thanks,

Nayab

Marianne
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I am not an AIX expert. If I was directly involved here, I would give the requirements that are documented in the HCL to the AIX admin (this is from 7.6 HCL. Please check 8.0 HCL as well):

2. On IBM AIX, use of the IBM Atape driver is required with IBM tape libraries. The Atape driver's multi-path feature must be disabled.

AIX was tested using the IBM Atape device drivers.
- Atape 12.10.4.0 driver tested on AIX 6.1 and 7.1. NetBackup does not support the driver's Data Path Failover feature.

Hi Marianne, 

I understand the current setup is using OVPass for tape drivers and i am going to remove it and install Atape drivers.

So just to confirm with you on NBU side

1. Move tapes to standalone mode 

2. Delete robots, tape drives 

3. Configure tape library (At this point do i need to delete all the storage unit and recreate them ? And the make changes in the policies ? But what if i am using same Storage unit name deletion doesn't matter right ?)

4. Bring all the tapes from old library and insert in to new library ( As i am going to reuse the same tapes)

5. Perform an inventory 

Marianne
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You never said what make/model the old or new tape library is.

ovpass driver is for non-IBM tape libraries. 
Atape driver is for IBM libraries only.

If your new library is non-IBM, you should use another supported media server as robot control host (e.g. Linux or Windows).

About point 3 - 
If anything is different, i.e. robot number and/or drive density, then you need to create new STU and update all policies.
Important to ensure that new tape drives have same density as old drives and the media.
All densities (drives, media, STU) must match in order to write or read current tapes.

Sorry, Old library is Quantum and new is IBM TS3100. 

Hi Marianne, 

Configured new library and its being shown as TLD(1) where my old library is TLD(0).

My New tape library showing type as HCART3 but all my media (Tapes) type is HCART2 (My Old Library Is also HCART2) . I have moved one of the tape from my old library to new library and performed inventory but t was not able to see the tape 

I used command vmchange to change it from HCART2 to HCART3 and did an inventory and was able to see the tape from my new library,  but strange thing i noticied is the media ID was suppose to in format A00123 (In the old library) but it was shown in new library as 0123L5.

I tried to run a backup but encountered error 96 

Error bptm : Incorrect Media found in drive Index 5, expected 0123L5, Found A00123 , FREEZING 0123L5.

Thanks,

Nayab

Marianne
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This is what I said to you on Monday:

Just confirm how the robot reads and presents barcodes to backup applications. Older robots used to present 1st 6 characters (without the L# at the end). Newer robots report all 8 characters. So, you will need to add Media Id Generation rule to use 1st 6 chars.

And yesterday: 

About point 3 - 
If anything is different, i.e. robot number and/or drive density, then you need to create new STU and update all policies.
Important to ensure that new tape drives have same density as old drives and the media.
All densities (drives, media, STU) must match in order to write or read current tapes.

Your steps that you have actually performed also do not correspond with the steps that you posted in your opening post. That is why you now have TLD(0) and TLD(1). 

If you don't want to accept well-intended advice, then there is nothing else that I can add.

Good luck.

Hi Marianne, 

Thanks for the reply. It was communicated differently to me earlier to completely replace the tape library and based on that i have prepared my procedure to do. But when i am onsite it was totally different they want to have the old library as well so i had no choice. Anyway thanks for your reply all the way....

I am Glad that i found your old post on how to fix my current issue :) 

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Modifying-media-ID-generation-rule/td-p/629814

 

I was not able to see the STANDALONE option when i right click on the particular tape to move it to STANDALONE, How i will be able to move a tape to STANDALONE ?

Marianne
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Look in the GUI at the old robotic volume group. 
Select all of the tapes. Move them to standalone by de-selecting  "volume is in a robotic library" and "---" in volume group name.

Marianne
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@NAYAB

I remembered that you mentioned AIX master/media server.

You may want to take note of Veritas's intention to drop support for AIX and HP-UX master and media servers.

See: https://sort.veritas.com/nbufutureplans