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Tape media

liuyang
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Hi, I have a few questions regarding tape media in NBU. My NBU is NBU 7.0.1 on Windows 2008 R2 and the tape library is TLD. The library has some I/O slot to import/export media.

My questions are:

1. Currently the tape media in the library is randomly inserted into slots, e.g., barcode 01 to slot 04. Is there a way to relocate the media according to barcode in NBU? For example, barcode 01 to slot 01, barcode 02 to slot 02. I found there is First slot number properties. Can I use it to do so?

2. I want to export media which is full to offsite location. Are there any guidelines of procedures to do this properly?

Thanks.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

The answers given are correct.  You spend lots of money to buy NetBackup to manage the media for you.  Don't try to 'Micro' manage the environment, it makes troubleshooting more complicated 'generally'.

You separete your backups onto different volume pools, that is as much details as you need.  It is almost certain that if you did get all the tapes into the corresponding slot numbers, they may well becom jumbled up again anyhow.  It you need to check a particular tape vmquery -m <media id> will tell you where it is.

The biggest tip for offsiting media is package it correctly.  In many years of doing backups, I have seen only one type of trasport case I would use personally - check out the 'dataguard' range from Imation.  The case inserts for the tapes are 'spongy' (soft) and fit losely inside the case to avoid 'shock' damage to the tapes.

Don't allow the drives to 'shoe shine' - that is, run below their minimum streaming speed (around 45 MB/s for LTO4 from memory).  If you do, the tapepack inside the cartridge becomes loose and not flat, which can lead to the edges of the tape becoming damaged when physically moved.

 

Martin

View solution in original post

9 REPLIES 9

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

Which is the library you have (model)?

1. Regarding slots movement you need not to bother abt this because library will take care of this things and you need not to remember which slot contain which tape.

2. For importing and exporting of the tapes use the fallowing

use "Robtest" Program Files\Veritas\Volmgr\bin>robtest

m s1 p1  ---------- move slot1 to port1    port(cap)

for ejecting medias u can just select the media and rightclick and use "eject volume from robot" option

Sriram
Level 6

Hi Liuyang,

 

If you are going to arrange the medias in the library w.r.t to slot numbers, there are more chances that the medias will get jumbled again inside the library.  Actually this should not be a matter of concern to you, because the library knows where the tape is and when the tape will be required when in need,

If you want to identify tapes marked FULL, then go to netbackup\bin\goodies and run "available_media" command which will report you the FULL tapes.  Now you can make a list of those tapes and eject them and send them offsite.

- Sri

liuyang
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Hi Rajesh and Sriram, thanks for your answers.

 

Then is it possible to set an alert to notify me when a media is full? If it can do that, I do not need to manually check avaiable_media.

My boss thought it will be easier to manage if we can map barcode to slot. For example, we may put slot 1 to 10 to volume pool A for design department and slot 11 to 20 to volume pool B for sales department. Our tape library is IBM TS3310. Is it possbile? If not, what are the recommend configurations in NBU?

Thanks.

 

Sriram
Level 6

Hi Liuyang,

It is possible, you can write a BAT script to identify FULL tapes from "available_media" command and schedule it in windows scheduler as you want to send notification.

I have done this in UNIX environment in my setup.

You do that without mapping the tape to slot.

-Sri

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

NetBackup is a wonderful application , no need to bother anything .

Just go the reports in the admin console in that click on the 'Tape report' tab in that you will all sorts of reports with respect to tape .

You choose 'tape list' where you can able to find out the status of the tape and also what is the used capacity and whether is the tape is full or not , frozen etc all the information will be available in one shot.

By seeing this report you will come to know how many tapes are free and how much its currently used and all.

Regards,

Rajesh

Rajesh_s1
Level 6
Certified

Else you can use NetBackup OpsCentre free tool which comes with Netbackup 7.0 . You can monitor and manage all the Natbackup events from this . And also you can schedule requried reports which can be sent to your mail id.

From this you can automate all the required reports from this .

liuyang
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Thanks a lot for your help.

Then for my the other question, map media barcode to slot, is it possible?

And I would like the setting to be: tape media 01 to 10 in volume pool A, when backup data are written to these media, it should start to write to media 01 first. When media 01 is full, it continue to write to media 02. Then I will export media 01 to offsite and add another media to this volume pool, e.g, tape media 11.

Does NBU automatically do this or I need to configure it?

Will_Restore
Level 6

Netbackup will allocate media based on Volume Pool.

You cannot expect it will use media 01 and then media 02, however.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

The answers given are correct.  You spend lots of money to buy NetBackup to manage the media for you.  Don't try to 'Micro' manage the environment, it makes troubleshooting more complicated 'generally'.

You separete your backups onto different volume pools, that is as much details as you need.  It is almost certain that if you did get all the tapes into the corresponding slot numbers, they may well becom jumbled up again anyhow.  It you need to check a particular tape vmquery -m <media id> will tell you where it is.

The biggest tip for offsiting media is package it correctly.  In many years of doing backups, I have seen only one type of trasport case I would use personally - check out the 'dataguard' range from Imation.  The case inserts for the tapes are 'spongy' (soft) and fit losely inside the case to avoid 'shock' damage to the tapes.

Don't allow the drives to 'shoe shine' - that is, run below their minimum streaming speed (around 45 MB/s for LTO4 from memory).  If you do, the tapepack inside the cartridge becomes loose and not flat, which can lead to the edges of the tape becoming damaged when physically moved.

 

Martin