Trouble with Tape drive library

[ipmanyak]

I set Netbackup 8.1.1 recently and some time everything worked normally.

My tape library is  HP MSL-2024   with LTO7 catridges.

.  Now my job have status queued and say me:

25.05.2018 15:34:31 - Info nbjm (pid=5072) starting backup job (jobid=647) for client TMN-FS01.utair.dom, policy TEST-POLICY, schedule Full
25.05.2018 15:34:31 - Info nbjm (pid=5072) requesting STANDARD_RESOURCE resources from RB for backup job (jobid=647, request id:{F8CC856E-49A4-4DCD-B338-0E9E5799FB59})
25.05.2018 15:34:31 - requesting resource  tmn-nbu-hcart-robot-tld-0
25.05.2018 15:34:31 - requesting resource  tmn-nbu.utair.dom.NBU_CLIENT.MAXJOBS.TMN-FS01.utair.dom
25.05.2018 15:34:31 - requesting resource  tmn-nbu.utair.dom.NBU_POLICY.MAXJOBS.TEST-POLICY
25.05.2018 15:34:31 - awaiting resource tmn-nbu-hcart-robot-tld-0. No drives are available.

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My library is visible and Inventory run succefully. I see 24 tapes. But drive diagnostics failed.

At first it try mount tape eg. ATA178L7 then wrote than cannot read barcode label.

On second try it wrote that "Drive Information    Failed    Unable to allocate resources for diagnostics"

Service "NetBackup Device Manager"  ( ltid) have status  - running

Some information from utilities

tpconfig -l

vmoprcmd -d

robotest amd other

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vmoprcmd -d -h tmn-nbu

C:\Program Files\Veritas\Volmgr\bin>vmoprcmd -d -h tmn-nbu

                                PENDING REQUESTS
                                     <NONE>
                                  DRIVE STATUS
Drv Type   Control  User      Label  RecMID  ExtMID  Ready   Wr.Enbl.  ReqId
  0 hcart    TLD               No                     Yes     Yes        0
                             ADDITIONAL DRIVE STATUS
Drv DriveName            Shared    Assigned        Comment
  0 HP.ULTRIUM7-SCSI.000  No       -

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C:\Program Files\Veritas\Volmgr\bin>tpconfig -l
Device Robot Drive       Robot                    Drive                 Device
Type     Num Index  Type DrNum Status  Comment    Name                  Path
robot      0    -    TLD    -       -  -          -                     {4,0,3,1}
  drive    -    0  hcart    1      UP  -          HP.ULTRIUM7-SCSI.000  {4,0,3,0}

---------------------------------------------------------------

C:\Program Files\Veritas\Volmgr\bin>robtest.exe
Configured robots with local control supporting test utilities:
  TLD(0)     robotic path = {4,0,3,1}

Robot Selection
---------------
  1)  TLD 0
  2)  none/quit
Enter choice: 1
1
Robot selected: TLD(0)   robotic path = {4,0,3,1}
Invoking robotic test utility:
C:\Program Files\Veritas\Volmgr\bin\tldtest.exe -rn 0 -r {4,0,3,1}
Opening {4,0,3,1}
MODE_SENSE complete
Enter tld commands (? returns help information)
s s 5
slot 5 (addr 1005) contains Cartridge = yes
Source address = 1005
Barcode = ATA164L7

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C:\Program Files\Veritas\Volmgr\bin>vmoprcmd -h tmn-nbu -timeout 3600 -autoconfig  -a
TPAC60 - - - -1~-1~-1~-1 2 - - - 0 - - - - - - - 0 0 - - tmn-nbu.utair.dom 4 - 0 - - - -
 TPAC60 HP.ULTRIUM7-SCSI.000 HP~~~~~~Ultrium~7-SCSI~~G9Q1 - 4~0~3~0 1 0 0 1 8 3 - - - 9C1730E870 - 6 0 0 - - tmn-nbu.uta
ir.dom 0 - 0 - - - -
 TPAC60 0 HP~~~~~~MSL~G3~Series~~~7.00 - 4~0~3~1 0 0 0 - 8 - 24 1 0 DEC73408KB - 5 0 - tmn-nbu.utair.dom tmn-nbu.utair.d
om tmn-nbu.utair.dom 0 - 0 - - - -

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C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd> bpstulist -label tmn-nbu-hcart-robot-tld-0 -U

Label:                tmn-nbu-hcart-robot-tld-0
Storage Unit Type:    Media Manager
Host Connection:      tmn-nbu.utair.dom
Number of Drives:     24
On Demand Only:       no
Max MPX/drive:        1
Density:              hcart - 1/2 Inch Cartridge
Robot Type/Number:    TLD / 0
Max Fragment Size:    1048576 MB

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I again start and configure  thru master wizard storage  successfully but library dont work.

Yesterday drive test run succesfully/ But test job not run.

[Marianne]

Pity you never checked compatibility before you made decisions about hardware. 

Statement of Support for NetBackup 7.x and 8.x in a Virtual Environment clearly states that only DISK is supported on Virtual servers. Tape (media manager) is not supported on VMware or Hyper-V. 
There is a list of virtual environments that do support tape - see page 7.

If you mentioned tape on Virtual media server from the start, this would've been a very short discussion.

Remember to tell the Support engineer that you are working with that you are using tape on VMs.... 

[ipmanyak]

Official partner HP  send me URL for  special utility for test my MSL-2024, L&TT - HPE Library and Tape Tools is a collection of storage hardware management and diagnostic tools for tape mechanisms and tape automation products http://h20566.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=406731&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=54
I performed necessary operations and sent them logs. They told that a test was passed normally and the tape library is efficient.
Also they sent document from HP about Fiber channel work under VMs. Document in attach. There it is specified that the virtual Fiber channel works under guest windows server 2012.  My guest VM works under the Hyper-V Windows server 2012  R2 and OS   - Windows server 2012 R2 too. 

[mph999]

I have sent a response from the Veritas case.

[ipmanyak]

My boss allowed to install temporarily NBU 8.1.1 on the hosts machine with HYPER-V role. I made it. Several test backups with different policy on tape library passed successfully, test restoration from the first backups was executed successfully too. Positioning works.
It is a pity that NBU 8.1.1 cannot work with Fiber Channel fabric in the virtual environment of HYPER-V.
Decided to leave temporarily NBU on this machine. But as they say, there is nothing more constantly than temporal!

[mph999 · Accepted solution]

I agree, it is a pain that it does not work, but as you will understand, with the limitation caused by Hyper-V / VMWare with 'physical' devices, we are somewhat limited in what we can do.

I would love to say - go ahead and do this, this, and this and it will kinda work - but then I would not be doing my job, as I would be allowing and encouraging an unsupported config.

Sadly, sometimes the correct answer is 'no, you cannot do this', although it s not what people want to hear.  

We have seen in customer cases, and plenty of exaples here on the forum, that people have tried this and suffered constant ongoing issues.

Unsupported tends to mean one of two things:

1.  We haven't tested it, so don't know if it will work.

2.  It doesn't work, or has intermittant issues.

Your issue comes under number 2.

The worst situation is that a production system is set up and running insome 'unsupported ' config.  Then sometime later because of this, it suffers some faiure.  If the issue is caused, as in this case, by something external to NetBackup that we have absolutly no control over, then there really is nothing we can do - we can't 'fix'  a  Hyper-V issue.   So you can understand why I may appear to be difficult and unhelpful, but if we had gone ahead and you suffered issues with production data, you can see we would be in a much much worse position.

I thank you for your understanding.

Kindest regards,

Martin