cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

questions of Netbackup schedule and tape usage

CCBNZ
Level 4

Hi experts,

I am just  a bit confused about the schedule of Netbackup. When I use the default schedule - once per week for full backup and once per day for incremental backup, then it highlights both 7 days a week for both two types of backup, as attached screenshot "s1.jpg". But if the full backup runs once per week, shouldn't it only highlight ( the green colour)  for 1 day instead of 7 days? Or I have to manually change it into one day only just like attached "s2.jpg"? Which way is correct?

Regarding the tape usage, how do I know if the tapes are nealy full? Is there any notification? Will the new data overwrite the tapes with data expired retention date automaticlly? 

Thank you

 

 

 

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Accepted Solutions

davidmoline
Level 6
Employee

As for the schedule. You will notice that the frequency of the full backup is 1 week, so the backup will run only once per 7 days. The way the start windows is defined simply means that a full backup could have started on any day of the week (for the first time). Both ways of defining the schedule are correct, although that shown in S2 is probably better practice as YOU define which day the full will run. 
As a side note - when you have a policy that has two (or more) possoble schedules that could run on a particular day, the one with the least frequency will prevail - so for the situation shown in S2, the weekly will run on Saturday night/Sunday morning even though the daily could also run. 

For tape usage, the command bpmedialist will provide information about how much data has been written to a tape (refer to the manual pages for options) and if the tape is full. Determining nearly full is challenging as most tape drives compress data as it is written so depending on the compressability of the data makes it difficult to determine when the tape is nearly full. When a tape does become full, NetBackup wiill automatically manage the situation and continue writing another tape. 
NetBackup will never overwrite a tape until all backups on that tape have expired. 

View solution in original post

Yes - once all backups on a tape have expired NetBackup will make the tape available for reuse. Exactly when it will be reused is dependant on a number of factors based on the the number of times that tape has been used, and other available tapes in the environment. 

Tapes that are in use have an "Assigned Date" associated with them, tapes that are available do not have this value (it is blank in the GUI). 

View solution in original post

4 REPLIES 4

davidmoline
Level 6
Employee

As for the schedule. You will notice that the frequency of the full backup is 1 week, so the backup will run only once per 7 days. The way the start windows is defined simply means that a full backup could have started on any day of the week (for the first time). Both ways of defining the schedule are correct, although that shown in S2 is probably better practice as YOU define which day the full will run. 
As a side note - when you have a policy that has two (or more) possoble schedules that could run on a particular day, the one with the least frequency will prevail - so for the situation shown in S2, the weekly will run on Saturday night/Sunday morning even though the daily could also run. 

For tape usage, the command bpmedialist will provide information about how much data has been written to a tape (refer to the manual pages for options) and if the tape is full. Determining nearly full is challenging as most tape drives compress data as it is written so depending on the compressability of the data makes it difficult to determine when the tape is nearly full. When a tape does become full, NetBackup wiill automatically manage the situation and continue writing another tape. 
NetBackup will never overwrite a tape until all backups on that tape have expired. 

Thank you, David. It is a very clear explaination.

So for tape usage, that means if all backups on a tape passed the retention date, Netbackup will overwrite it?

Yes - once all backups on a tape have expired NetBackup will make the tape available for reuse. Exactly when it will be reused is dependant on a number of factors based on the the number of times that tape has been used, and other available tapes in the environment. 

Tapes that are in use have an "Assigned Date" associated with them, tapes that are available do not have this value (it is blank in the GUI). 

Thank you!