tape drives are active but NO ready, why?

[DanielYan]

Hi there,

I have a NetBackup 6.5.6 master/media server with a tape library that has 3 tape drives. From the NetBackup Console I see all 3 tape drives are active but only one is ready and has a tape in, the other two drives are NO ready, meanwhile there're a couple of backup/restore jobs queued and the reason is " awaiting resource Any - No drives are available" or "awaiting resource LLN283 Reason: Drives are in use".

I wonder it's a hardware issue or I missed a setting in NetBackup. All drives are recently cleaned up.

Thank you,

Daniel

[CY]

Daniel,

Tape drives' availability is controlled by nbrb (NetBackup Resource Broker), so if somehow a tape resource was not properly released after last backup/restore activity, nbrb would assume the drive is still in use and not available for next activity.

Try this

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/nbrbutil -listOrphanedDrives

If it says there is no orphaned drives, try

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/nbrbutil -dump > /tmp/nbrbutil_dump_file

and use your text editor (such as vi on Unix) to check that dump file "/tmp/nbrbutil_dump_file".  Look for string such as this example:

index=5 (Allocation: id={BCA9F306-1DD1-11B2-8F43-00144F80B362} provider=ReservationGroupProvider resourcename=tape_drive_3 masterserver=nbu_server_name

That dump file should show you which resrouces (I.E. tape drives) are "in use" from nbrb's perspective.

So if you are pretty sure certain drives are not in use by another backup or restore activity, but nbrb thinks it is in use, you can find the "request ID" in that string and cancel that zombie resource request by running this

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/nbrbutil -releaseDrive <drivename>

Here are some technotes for your reference

DOCUMENTATION: A listing and explanation of switches for the nbrbutil command
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH46807

Using the nbrbutil utility to configure the NetBackup Resource Broker on Windows
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO42528

Hope this helps.

[Will_Restore · Accepted solution]

Storage Unit Properties

Maximum concurrent write drives

(should be set to '3')

[DanielYan]

I run the command but don't see any zombie because there's no queued job at this moment. I will try to release the drive next time. Thank you.

Daniel

[DanielYan]

It's 3 now. It was 4 but I have a drive permanently down long time ago due to mechanic issue. Thank you for reminding me check this setting. I forgot it as I have only 3 drives left.

Daniel

[Marianne]

Please mark wrobbins' post as solution.