Tape rotation strategy in Netbackup

[newww]

Hello,

I’m quite new to NetBackup and am in the process of setting up a tape rotation strategy. We have a Quantum autoloader 3 with a bar code reader TS3310 tape library and we’re using NetBackup 6.5. Our media is barcoded.

I already configured the GrandFather-Father-Son strategy in Backup Exec and I want to do the same with netbackup. How can I configure this tape rotation?

Thanks,

[RiaanBadenhorst]

In NetBackup a policy determines the what, where, how frequent/long. Where the data goes in determined by the storage unit and volume pool, what is determined by the client and backup selection (file list), and how frequent/long is determined by the schedule.

You'll want to create 3 different schedules (in each policy) that possibly point to 3 different volumes pool (daily, weekly, monthly).

Check the admin guide for these concepts and you'll figure it out.

[Kernel_Panic]

When I was a backup admin, one of my customers told me to keep a single tape for each day in the same volume pool. The best way for this is to create the volume pool scratch and use it as well, so don't use a fix rotation.

Why I'm telling you this? coz if you need a particular tape for each day you'll have to freeze another ones, expirate some other and it's kind disturbing to do that while you have the chance to use scratch.

It doesn't matter which tape is gonna be used for X backup, the only tape yoyu just need to keep in mind is the catalog one in case of a DR. The catalog handle the way the images are gonna be writen in which tape, date and etc.

Below I will give you a technote related to scratch.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH17904&key=15142&actp=LIST

How netbackup allocates media 

New Backup which is first time allocation order: 

1. A tape in dirve that has images on it is looked for 
2. A tape in drive that has no images on it is looked for 
3. A tape that has images on it is looked for 
4. A scratch tape is looked for 


When a tape reaches EOM, a span request is serviced by MDS. 

The logic for span tape allocation order: 

1. Look for a tape in drive that has no images on it. 
2. Select a drive. 
2. Look for scratch tape for a drive selected 
3. Look for tape in drive that has images on it. 
4. Look for tape (not in drive) that has images on it. 

The scratch pool is an optional volume pool that can be configured within VERITAS NetBackup. If the scratch pool is configured, Media Manager moves volumes from that pool to other pools that do not have volumes available.

[newww]

Thanks Flavio for your answer

I don't undestand how you use the scratch pool to keep a single tape for each day
In backup Exec, I'm setting the Append Period in the Daily volume pool to zero to ensure that a tape contains backups of only one day (a tape per day).

[rizwan84tx · Accepted solution]

You may deploy all your tapes in Scratch pool; and you dont have to assign a media everyday to required pool. Netbackup will automatically assign a media from scratch to the volume pool required for the backup job.