Retire old ACS and add tapes to HP Library

[FibreMan]

Afternoon,

First let me describe what I want to do, then I'll describe what we have, then you can tell me if my plan will work or not!:)

What I want to do:

Retire and old Sun Storetek Library (LTO4) and be able to read tapes that have not expired in another LTO4 HP library (24 slot) & be able to use the tapes that are now in the scratch pool in the other HP (LTO4) library.

I tried to use one that was in the scratch pool but said it was not a unique barcode.

So key points:

Be able to use tapes not expired yet

Use ones in scratch pool in HP library

What I have:

Netbackup 7.1 on Solaris Master Server

Netbackup 7.1 on 2x Solaris Media Servers

1x Sun Stortek LTO 4

1x HP 2024 LTO 4

1x HP MSL 6000 LTO3

My Plan (from reading other articles:

Right click all the tapes in the library (Couple of hundred still inside) and eject.  They wont actually eject just I take manually climb into library to remove them.

Remove the ACS from the NBU console (maybe power Sun Library off if im feeling brave)

Add the tapes that were scratch in the HP library and inventory so they can be used for backup.

Add a not expired tape and see if it can see it should have images on....

Your turn, does that sound like a reasonable plan or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.

PS: I wont be doing this for a few weeks so wont be able to try anything or mark solutions etc until a little while down the road.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hello

To move a media between (any) library all you need to do is. Move the media to stand alone, either by right clicking it and move > standalone residence, or to eject it via the eject function.

NetBackup then knows that the media is not in the first robot, and would therefore not complain about a duplicate ID, when you put it in the second robot. Think about it, if you put something in one place, some else removes it and puts its somewhere else and then you find it. You too would think its a duplicate.

The images will be intact, its kept on disk and there is a reference to which media the actual data resides on. This reference makes connection between robot and image, only mediaID and image.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

I tried to use one that was in the scratch pool but said it was not a unique barcode.

I agree with Riaan - 1st step is to ensure the media-id's are moved in NBU to non-robotic (logical move) before you try to add them to another robot.

Another possible cause for above message is that both libraries can read all 8 characters on the barcode, but one of them is probably presenting the 1st 6 characters to NBU (ACS) and the other all 8 (HP library).
For 8 characters presented to NBU without Media ID Generation Rule in place, NBU will use the last 6 chars and try to add it as new media id.
This will fail as the existing media id with 1st 6 characters will have the same barcode as the new media for the last 6 chars, e.g:
ACS: A00001L4 Media-id: A00001
HP: A00001L4 Media-id: 0001L4

If you run the following command for the HP library and show us what current media config looks like, we should be able to point you in the right direction:

vmcheckxxx -rt <robot-type> -rn <robot-number> -rh <robot control host> 

So, the HP library should be type tld. Assume robot number is 1 and robot control host is media1:

vmcheckxxx -rt tld -rn 1 -rh media1

This command is the equivalent of 'check contents and compair'.

Copy output for one of the problematic tapes and post output along with output of:
vmquery -m <media-id>
(use 1st characters of the barcode).

So, if my assumption is right, add  Media ID Generation Rule for the robot number to use 1st characters.

e.g. Robot number - 1, Barcode length - 8, Media ID generation rule - 1:2:3:4:5:6

[FibreMan]

Thanks for that.

There are no problem tapes in it at the moment, but I ran the command anyway just for a bit of fun, not sure if it gives you any clues:

Robot Contents          Volume Configuration

Slot    Tape  Barcode           Media ID Barcode        Mismatch Detected

====    ====  =============     ======== =============  =================

   1     Yes  LDC264L3          LDC264   LDC264L3

   2     Yes  LDC265L3          LDC265   LDC265L3

   3     Yes  LDC266L3          LDC266   LDC266L3

   4     Yes  LDC267L3          LDC267   LDC267L3

   5     Yes  LDC268L3          LDC268   LDC268L3

   6     Yes  LDC269L3          LDC269   LDC269L3

   7     Yes  LDC270L3          LDC270   LDC270L3

   8     Yes  LDC271L3          LDC271   LDC271L3

   9     Yes  LDC272L3          LDC272   LDC272L3

So I need to run that command when I insert the ejected tapes from the old ACS and see why it is upset? :)

[Marianne]

All seems fine for now. 

Media ID generation seems fine. 
It shows rules for robot 1 and 2.
So, you no longer have robot 0? Or just no rules for robot 0?

Yes - run the vmcheckxxx next time you add tapes from the ACS robot.

As Riaan said - please eject or perform logical move from ACS robot to show robot location as NONE before doing inventory on TLD robot.

[FibreMan]

There is no TLD0.  It is ACS0 which is the one that I am hoping to put in the bin.

Ill keep this thread up to date when I move the tapes over. :)

Thanks everyone.

[Marianne]

I thought as much - ACS as robot 0. Just curious to know how ACSLS presents the barcode to NBU. 6 or 8 chars? If you still have media in ACS robot, I am curious to see vmquery -m output for one of the tapes.

[FibreMan]

Here is the output from a tape I want to move from ACS to TLD:

./vmquery -m u00500

================================================================================

media ID:              U00500

media type:            1/2" cartridge tape (6)

barcode:               U00500

media description:     ---

volume pool:           Scratch_pool (4)

robot type:            ACS - Automated Cartridge System (1)

robot number:          0

robot slot:            0

robot control host:    NONE

volume group:          000_00000_ACS

vault name:            ---

vault sent date:       ---

vault return date:     ---

vault slot:            ---

vault session id:      ---

vault container id:    -

created:               Wed Sep 03 08:49:34 2014

assigned:              ---

last mounted:          Fri Sep 05 15:31:32 2014

first mount:           Fri Sep 05 15:31:32 2014

expiration date:       ---

number of mounts:      1

max mounts allowed:    150

================================================================================

[Marianne]

Step 1 would be to eject or move this tape from ACS robot. But. .. If I look at vmquery output and vmcheckxxx a couple of days ago, it seems that ACS robot is only presenting the 1st 6 characters of the barcode to NBU, but the HP library all 8. This tape is scratch. Instead of doing all sorts of vmchange commands to change the barcode from U00500 to U00500L3, I would simply delete this tape and let Inventory of HP robot add it as new.

[FibreMan]

So do I need to change the HP (TLD 2) to have a media generation ID of 1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8 so it will use all 8 characters?

Currently it looks like both ACS and HP TLD are showing only the first 6 in the GUI.  But there is no media generation rule for ACS (if that makes sense).

[Marianne]

No. vmcheckxxx output that you posted earlier shows that HP robot reads and presents all 8 chars of the barcode to NBU (barcode field) but NBU media id field can store only 6 chars. So, existing 1st 6 is good. The existing barcode field will have to be updated to change it to 8 chars if you don't want to delete existing media before adding to HP library: vmchange -barcode U00500L3 -m U00500 (assuming all tapes have L3 suffix)

[FibreMan]

Well thanks for your help everyone.  It didnt go as planned or as describe above.

After moving into standalone, I was still getting errors when I physically put the tapes in the other library.  Non unique ID's as I had when I last tried it.

The only way round this was to toally remove the tape from Netbackup by deleting it from standalone.  So the old ACS will have to stay around until the tapes expire in a few months time and I will no longer need to theACS to do any restores as there will be no tapes for it.

Not ideal but I got there in the end.

[Marianne]

Have you tried vmchange to update barcode as per my post of 1 May?

Please note that you will only be able to delete and re-add tapes if all images have expired.

[FibreMan]

Sorry for the delay in replying, the forum doesnt seem to send update emails anymore.

All of the images had expired and they were all in scratch pool so didnt see why I would have needed to do the vmchange command.

I will bear that in mind if we have to put a tape in that does have images on it still and I need to restore them, but as of the end of july hopefully that wont be an issue as they will all have expired on old ACS library.

[Marianne]

Delete and re-add is easiest when all images on tape have expired.