Tape labeling, barcodes and volume pool assignment...

[maxsven]

Hi,

I got a Netbackup system that I’ve inherited from a previous admin and the fact I’m still familiarizing myself with the product, I have a task to implement which I have not done before and need your advice!

We have a volume pool called “AB-Pool” and I got 40 new tapes and labels and I have no idea how to go through labelling the tapes, get the library to read the barcodes and assign them to “AB-Pool” with Netbackup reading every barcode as the label says.. The labels I got start from AB-0330L5 to AB-0370L5.

We are running NetBackup 7.5.0.5 on Windows 2008 R2, 1 Master server, 2 media servers each connected to its own library…

Thanks in advance!

[inn_kam]

How to change the barcode from command line.

Article:TECH10862

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Created: 2001-01-03

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Updated: 2002-01-10

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Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH10862

How to fix the problem of barcode and mediaID mismatch

Article:TECH89765

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Created: 2003-01-11

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Updated: 2005-01-05

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Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH89765

[Marianne]

Please help as understand your requirement?

Were new labels put on tapes that were previously used?

Or are they brand new?

If brand new, and you have a tape library with a barcode reader, there is no need to pre-label the tapes.

Simply add a barcode rule for all new tapes starting with AB to go into AB-pool.

Open the Inventory GUI, select the Barcode Rule tab and add a new rule:

Barcode Tag        AB  
Media Type         <select density that matches tape drives>
Volume Pool        AB-pool
 

When you put these tapes in the robot and perform and inventory, they will be added to AB-pool.
The first time a tape is used for backup, NBU will write the internal label before starting to write the data.                   

[maxsven]

Hi Marrianne,

thanks for your reply,.. yes these are new tapes and new labels... there is an existing bar code rule that will put all tapes with labels starting with AB in the AB-Pool.. but if I labael the new tapes with those new labels will the bar code reader read the barcode as the label says? and communicate this to netbackup? I don't know the process of how those bar codes and labels were created in first place...as I said it was already done by the previous admin...

[Andy_Welburn]

You'll be fine, but there's one way to find out!

If you've any doubts just do one tape to start with - if the results are not as expected then you've only one to sort out initially.

[maxsven]

so what is  normally the process of ordering new labels that would guarintee the bar code reader will read the barcodes as the label says? and communicate this to netbackup?

[Andy_Welburn]

We generally ordered them from the same supplier as our tapes, altho' I believe we did swap supplier at some point which meant the format of said labels were not passed to them correctly & ended up being upside-down but were still of the correct format i.e. could be read by the library.

Just let 'them' know what they're for (LTO5) how they need to be presented, barcode top/bottom, coloured numbers etc etc. - thought you already had them tho?

[maxsven]

yes I already have them, but I was wondering if there might be some universal barcode standards so that all tape readers would read the same bar code and give the same label as the output...

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

OK, we need to know if the robot reads and reports only the 1st 6 characters of the label or the entire label, including the L5 at the end (8 chars). 

The problem with all 8 characters is that NBU will store all 8 characters in the Barcode field, but only the last 6 chars will be stored in the Media id field meaning AB0370L5 will just be 0370L5. This is the NBU default. 

The assumption is that you want the media id as AB0370, right?

In that case, check to see if Media Id Generation rule has been added (another tab in the Inventory GUI).

Here you will add the robot number (you will have to add 2 rules, one for each robot), the length of the barcode (8) and the characters that you want to store as Media id (1:2:3:4:5:6).

This rule will be stored on the master in the vm.conf file (...\veritas\volmgr).

If you use Windows Admin Console or any of the media servers to perform Inventory, you need to copy this vm.conf entry to those machines as well.

[Andy_Welburn]

As Marianne stated below - media id generation rules are what determines the ..... media_id!

Each tape library & NetBackup environment could essentially produce a totally different media_id for the same barcode label depending upon the rules in place.

[maxsven]

Thanks Marianne...

that worked perfectly! so helpful as usual!!