Vault tape rotation

[nbugermany]

Hello,

We are using Netbackup Vault to eject media for the library. We want to rotate tapes in and out of the library for DR purposes. I have read in the documentation that you have a vault policy to do this, however I have not been able to get it to work. 

Currently is eject tapes everyday which have been written in the last 7 days.

I had to write a bash script to be able to check for tapes that are not full and have been mounted more then 7days ago. However I really think there is way for vault to do this. 

Any ideas?

[mph999]

High Level overview.

There is, you set vault to look for tape between 7 days old and 3 hours old (to avoid trying to eject tapes that are still in use) in the Choose Backups tab of the vault profile.

In Attributes (on the same page) tick the box next to the word Attributes and then select  Back POlices in the list below and add the polices you wish to vault tapes from.

In the Eject tab, add the volume pool(s) that you wish to eject tapes from.

[Marianne]

Not sure I fully understand what you need....

I have read in the documentation that you have a vault policy to do this, however I have not been able to get it to work. 

Currently is eject tapes everyday which have been written in the last 7 days.

You say that you are currently ejecting tapes every day.
Manually or with Vault?

With Vault, you need to create a profile, and then specify this profile in a Vault policy to automate the profile.

See NetBackup Vault Administrator's Guide  for detailed instructions.

Also see the Reports section in this manual to know when tapes must be returned to site.


 

[nbugermany]

Hi guys,

I have profile set up in vault, one for differentals and one for fulls.Which is working fine and automates the ejects of the tapes from the library fine. 

Now once the tapes are ejected, I want the tapes which are not full yet to live in the firesafe for a period of 7 days, and then a report should be generated for the operators, telling them that the tapes can be return to the robot and used again until they are full.

I have created a bash script that does this, but I was sure that Vault could do it also, I am also worried that because even though they are active and not full, that because they have been vaulted they are not being selected to be used.

Any feedback is help about this topic.

Thank you

[mph999]

OK, what you do is this:

Set the retention of the backups to 7 days.

Set up the vault reports (in the reports senction) called Vault Picklist and Robot Picklist - you can set these to write to a file, email etc ...  You can  have deferred or instant reports.

Vault the tapes like you are doing - at this point you'll get the robot picklist - which tapes to remove from library.

When the tapes expire (in 7 days) nothing happens until vault is run again (even if it doesn't eject anything) it will see the 'expired' tapes and will recall them, these appear on the vault picklist report.

Once they appear on the report, recall them - note that if you do not, they will not appear on the next vault report, it is a one time thing.

So in summary, vault recalls tapes that it vaulted, the next time that vault profile that vaulted them is run, after they have expired.

[nbugermany]

I dont want to expire them in 7 days. Is there no way to recall tapes which are active and can be used for backups again?

Once they are ejected by vault and givin a vault slot, does that mean they can not be used again until they expire?

Thanks

[mph999 · Accepted solution]

No, Vault can only recall expired tapes.

[nbugermany]

Ok I had that feeling, but in the docs I saw it said about rotating tapes for DR purposes so I thought it maybe did it.

So last question, when i put back in tape which have been ejected with vault, does that mean that even though they are still activie and not full, that Netbackup will not write to them again until they expire?

Thank you!

[mph999]

It would be interesting to see that doc, perhaps you could share a link.

If you put the tape back in the library, NBU will use it providing it's not suspected (an option with vault is to suspend tapes) - bpmedialist -m <media id> will show if it is suspended (you'll see the word SUSPENDED in the output).

[nbugermany]

In vault admin guide page 144, is says "You also may need to inject unexpired media for restore or disaster
recovery operations"

So I thought maybe disaster recovery mean rotating the tapes to avoid having them in a library from disaster, but I guess I am wrong on this.

Thank you very much for the help