increase utilization on backup tapes

[mwalbert]

Hello there,
We are running into an issue where we are ending up with a lot of partially filled tapes being vaulted - some with a very low percentage of the total capacity being utilized. What are some of the ways we can make sure that less free space is being left on the tapes before they are vaulted?

We do backups to disk, then dupe to tape for offsite storage.


Many thanks!
Michael

Relevant info: NBU 6.5.5; Powervault ML6010, 2 x LTO4 tape drives; 800/1600GB tapes; Vault module, VMWare backups via VMCB

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

There can be many reasons for partially filled tapes:
Multiple media servers
Multiple pools
Multiple retention periods.

One way of reducing number of tapes is to implement media sharing.
Extract from Admin Guide I:

Media sharing provides the following benefits:
■ Increases media utilization by reducing the number of partially full media.
■ Reduces media-related expenses because fewer media are required and fewer media are vaulted (NetBackup Vault option).
■ Reduces administrative overhead because you inject fewer scratch media into the robotic library.
■ Increases media life because media are mounted fewer times. Media are not repositioned and unmounted between write operations from different media servers. Reducing media mounts requires appropriate hardware connectivity between the media servers that share media and the drives that can write to that media. Appropriate hardware connectivity may include Fibre Channel hubs or switches, SCSI multiplexors, or SCSI-to-fibre bridges.

Also read up on Maximum number of partially full media property for selected pools.

AdminGuide I Windows

Admin Guide I for UNIX

[Nicolai]

Media sharing - That's the option called UNRESTRICTED_MEDIA_SHARING. Assigned tapes must be in scratch status before taking affect.

To enable: GUI - Host Properties - Master server - Media - Check "Enable unrestricted media sharing for all media servers".