new to NetBackup, have question.

[HutchMD]

We have just made the move from ARCServe to NetBackup 6.5

I have created 2 backup policies that both have multiple servers.

We also have a ADIC storage unit that has 2 drives.

I would like to be able to specify that each policy only use one drive.

Currently the way it is working is if backup policy 1 starts and it is backing up multiple servers it will go ahead and start using both drives. Thus not allowing the 2nd policy that starts later to have a drive.

Any help or ideas? Or maybe I'm going about this all wrong?

Thanks,

Hutch

[Andy_Welburn]

"Limit jobs per policy" - set to 1 for each policy within Policy Attributes tab.

***Edit***

Or set at some low value in relation to my following post.

Message Edited by Andy Welburn on 11-05-2008 03:05 PM

[Andy_Welburn]

Also, within Storage Unit, have you enabled Multiplexing & set Max Streams per drive? This should enable you to multi-plex your saves upto a maximum of 32 streams per drive. This may mean that my previous post does not apply. i.e. with enough streams allowed the first policy may only use one drive.

[HutchMD]

So let me get this straight...  I have 2 policies. For each policy I can set it to one job. (even though each policy has mulitiple servers) and it will only use one drive per policy?

Thanks for the reply,

Hutch

[Andy_Welburn · Accepted solution]

If you have 1 Policy with 3 clients each having 3 drives, say, C: E: & F: & your backup selection is ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES  then you have 9 (or 12 if you include System State or Shadow Copy Components) streams when the backup starts. If you restrict jobs per policy to, say 6 streams, then it will only run that many jobs/streams at one time, the others will queue.

Additionally, if you have allowed multi-plexing on your drives (via Storage Unit config) then this will also have an effect. If  this is set to say 4 streams then only 4 of the above will run (most restrictive is enforced).

Conversely, if you  don't restrict jobs per policy but multistreaming is set on the policy and multi-plexing etc is allowed on the storage unit/tape drive then you should/could be able to run all the above 12 jobs together to one tape drive. How you decide to run with this would depend on the performance hit on the clients &/or tape drive / backup window.

[HutchMD]

I think I get it now.

Thanks for you time to explain it to me.

Hutch

[Andy_Welburn]

That's ok.

You could just try tweaking each setting until you got what you needed.

It may be in your case that multi-plexing is set in Storage Unit and max streams set to 32, BUT with the number of clients you have on your 1st policy you are exceeding this limit & it then utilises the 2nd tape drive. e.g. max streams set to 32, 10 clients, 3 local drives (+ shadow copy) giving a total of 40 streams and unlimited jobs in the policy would mean that 32 streams would go to the first drive & the remaining to the second drive. In that scenario I would be tempted to set max jobs per policy to 20, say, & all would then go to first drive with half Q'ing.