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Ejustin's avatar
Ejustin
Level 3
5 years ago

Some Tapes not getting utlised on certain volume pools

Hello,

Am really new in netbackup, we are currently running verita netbackup on redhat 6.5, with LTO3 tapes, over time have made an  obsevertion in some volume pools:

  • Active  media status not getting full for over a year, yet when a new tapes are utilised
  • The new tapes are not fully utilized i.e the have capacity of about 800GB but show full at less than 200GB.

Am really afraid we are running out of tapes.

7.1.x and Earlier
Active tapes not being utilized
Linux

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  • RiaanBadenhorst's avatar
    RiaanBadenhorst
    Level 6
    5 years ago

    The most common causes of under utilization are;

    1. Defining more volume pools than you can really fill with data. It is a legacy practice to create ten or hundreds of volume pools in a NetBackup domain. One for Exchange, one for SQL, on for windows, one for unix, etc etc. The problem is that when you do this, each of those pools will take one media and NetBackup will write what ever you tell it on that media. Problem comes when you don't tell NetBackup to write any other backups on that pool (or media) but instead tell it to write in some other pools. Now you have 20 pools if only a few GB written in each pool (or media) that could have been written on one pool (or media)
    2. Having too many different retention periods and not allowing multiple retentions on a media. If one backup requires 12 months it will take a media, if another backup requires 10 months, it will take another media. I'm referring here to generally same type of backups, i.e all monthly backups, or all weekly backups.

    Golden Rule is to reduce complexity in all aspects of your NetBackup environment. That goes for policies, retention periods,volume pools, etc. If you there is no specific requirement to have more than one of ANYTHING do not create more than one.

    Examples.

    You've got 100 Windows servers in your environment. How many policies do you need?

    Answer: 1 (assuming no apps / databases and that you back them up exactly the same, schedule and backup selection)

    Only when someone makes a case for having a different schedule or backup selection do you need to create another policy.

    The same goes for pools.You can probably get away with Daily, weekly, monthly and quaterly or yearly if there is a requirement for that. But once again, only if there is a requirement.

    Hope that makes sense :)

     

    • Ejustin's avatar
      Ejustin
      Level 3
      5 years ago

      Thank you for the prompt reply,

      Its true we have many volume pools, and the paticular one with more un utilized tapes is the one that were use more often for weekly backups. Shows tapes which are not full, active but not in the Robot Control Host, others are last mounted in around 2010 but never wirtten and not in the Robot Control Host.

      What is really puzzling, is that tapes which are 800GB getting full at 200GB,  and its becoming more regular this year. When no changes have been on pools, retentions(increase in the pool numbers)