Using Multiplexing --- But backup job not progressing

[Surya_2]

Hi Guys,

In my curent account we are using ( NB5.1 MP4 Solaris 9, 64 bit kernel). We have two windows media servers. Each media server having 3 LTO2 tape drives. We created the storage group by including these media servers. Environment is working fine with 98% successrate. But the only problem is we have a policy, which is backing up totally 50 clients.

Policy Name:       Filesystem_Windows

 Policy Type:         MS-Windows-NT
 Active:              yes
 Effective date:      05/27/2004 13:06:30
 Backup network drvs: no
 Collect TIR info:    yes, with move detection
 Mult. Data Streams:  no
 Client Encrypt:      no
 Checkpoint:          yes
      Interval:       5
 Policy Priority:     0
 Max Jobs/Policy:     16
 Disaster Recovery:   0
 Residence:           Tactical
 Volume Pool:         Backups

MPX on schedule level set to 4. And storage unit level mulitplexing set to 4 [Ondemand - yes & Number of drives for each storage unit is 3. Fragment size is 2048 MB].

Problem::: Getting messages in activity monitor as "Positioning <media> to file 483. Positioned ; position time 00:00:00. Like this its going on from past 1/2 hour. I know this is because of multiplexing problem. How to avoid this seeking time.

Please help me to fix this problem!!

Thanks in advance.

Surya,

NetBackup Engineer.

[J_H_Is_gone]

Positioning <media> to file 483.

this looks like the tape you are using has un-expired images on it.  so the backup has to append to the end of tape - after the last image.

Do you remove your tapes each night or do you just keep appending to the end.

if you append..... it is going to take a little time to get to it.

I would try - remove any tapes from the robot that have unexpired images and try the backup again...knowing you have an empty tape to use.

Then see if it still takes a long time to start.

[Surya_2]

Well, netbackup will use same retension clients  to same media. It will not merge all retensions to a each tape.

In real time environments data will be appended in a tape. I know this problem because of multiplexing bcoz we have 50 clients backup up with mulitplexing feature.  I've cancelled the job, kicked another job. Which picked up new tape. Problem got resolved.

Surya,

NetBackup Engineer.