duplication jobs / writing to tape / status 96

[lovethatcheese]

Prob a pretty basic question  -

I have all of my tapes in the NB pool, which is final destination in staging. 34 are currently 'Full', while 5 are 'Active' with a low number of images / kbs compared to full tapes.

Between the 5 active, all retention levels are included (1-3). If a tape is set to 'active', does that mean it will still accept images from duplication jobs? Or are these tapes no longer available, if they are not empty at the start?

When it comes to these 5 active tapes, if they can still be written to, are they selected via existing image retention level on tape? (I do not have option for multple retention on same tape enabled in options).

I find myself above high water mark (running 7.5 / basic disk / solaris master) and no tapes to write to, which is not where I want to be.

I'm still learning NB, so if anyone could shed some light on this, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Marianne]

Active tapes (not Full, Frozen, Suspended, Imported) can be appended to.

If you have multiple media servers, media sharing is not enabled by default. So, once a tape is 'assigned' to server1, only server1 can append to this tape. The other requirements are that the pool must be the same, the tape must be in the robot requested by Storage Unit, and the retention level must match.

Media sharing is a big advantage and recommended. Allowing multiple retentions per media is possible, but NOT recommended.

This Status 96 troubleshooting wizard starts with a great explanation of how media is selected:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=answers&type=wizard&wizardid=NBU090&wizardstepid...

Great blog explaining how tapes are written: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/understanding-how-netbackup-writes-tape

Hope this helps!

[lovethatcheese]

Marianne,

The blog was helpful, as was the wizard. The end result was to open a case with Symantec (already open).

Per the wizard / http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO66952#v41250095

in my case, once high water mark is hit, 'active' tapes with matching retention levels should be utilized, not status 96 /191 errors.  should error out any client that tries to run scheduled backup, not allow it to go through and bypass high water mark.

(to clarify, 'active' tapes are in my final destination NB, with no available tapes in scratch pool. i don't keep any tapes in scratch pool, all in nb pool)

[Marianne]

High water mark applies to disk only, not tape. As long as tape is not Full, Suspended, Frozen, Impoted, tapes can be appended to. Carefully chech all selection criteria in my previous post and in the wizard before logging a Support call. We can also assist if you are prepared to post output of some commands. We need to know first of all how duplication is done - Vault, Disk Staging, SLP, manually (GUI or bpduplicate command)?

[lovethatcheese]

Hello - as my production environment is currently down, a support call had to be logged.

I have a basic disk configuation. Disk staging is scheduled everyday to duplicate  / write to tape.  All set up in admin GUI. This has worked fine for last 6 months like this. High water mark is never reached, never max my tapes out, etc.

No new clients / major increase in data has happened. Everything is the same as it ever was.

High water mark is 90%. Per my post above, I have 'active' tapes in my final destination pool. My basic disk is sitting at 97%, leaving me just under 3 TB of space left, and all full backups are scheduled during the weekend..meaning, a weekend full of errors.

My thoughts on this - why are status 96 happening when I have active tapes that should be utilized? Per my symantec rep, I just need to 'buy more tapes'. Never had to before, don't see why all of a sudden I need to?

Still doesn't explain why active tapes in final destination pool are not being 'appended to'? What am I missing here?

[Marianne]

 As I have tried to explain previously - you need to carefully go through selection criteria.

There is normally a perfect valid reason for status 96.

If you are prepared to work with me, I can help you to troubleshoot.

Please post output of the following commands:

available_media

(Unix path: /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/goodies

  Windows: <install-path>\veritas\netbackup\bin\goodies)

bpschedule -label <DSSU-schedule-name> -U

(Unix path: /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd

  Windows: <install-path>\veritas\netbackup\bin\admincmd)

Depending on output of these commands, I may ask for other command output....