HabibG2

455 Posts

1483

July 2nd, 2007 04:00

Backup Configuration & Library Management on 7.3.2

HI,

I am in the process of setting up a backup procedure as follows;

Running daily full backup on 13x W2003 servers. As the amount of data are small, all data will fit on one tape (Ultrium LTO3 400/800GB) daily. Each server will be backed up at separate time interval - I therefore need to create separate Group for each server.

My problem is I have 28 Tapes in my library and everyday I will need the previous day backup tape to be ejected to be stored off-site. I am using a Dell TL4000 ( IBM TS3200) tape library.

How can I best configure my backup for this to take place with minimum human intervention.

Thanks
Habib.

Responses(16)

ble1

14.3K Posts

0

July 16th, 2007 11:00

Is there any reason why you wish to run these 13 clients at different time given that data amount is small? You could simply put them in one group and then run backup with parallelism (group, client or server - depending on approach you take) of target session you decide to use. To force NW to use just one tape you simply create script which will update via mmlocate command location field for one tape to be in the library. That way, NW will think it has only one tape available and will use only that one. Next morning export it out and update second tape with mmlocate and NW will use that one. Even if you wish to use 13 groups you could still have same approach and have it working.

benzino1

244 Posts

1

July 2nd, 2007 05:00

1. Withdraws (you have to find out which tape to withdraw)
2. automedia management switched on on jukebox resource (it will take another available tape for a backup which is not offsite).

If you want to fit all day backups to one tape you have to think about changing target session on a device (default 4). In other case NW will try to load a tape to another tape drive to receive all backup streams. Another way is to assign particular pool to a particular tape drive.

Another approach is to switch off automedia management and manually lable a tape for today backup than withdraw this tape after finishing all backups.

HabibG2

455 Posts

0

July 2nd, 2007 07:00

Piotr,

Thanks for the info.

I know my backup will fill onto one tape.

My problem is that I do not want the following backup to use the same tape as I know Networker will use the tape if it available.

Ideally I want the tape to be ejected and if its not then I would like NetWorker to use a different tape.

I take your point about pooling, If I chose to do so, I will have to have about 28 different pools -one for each day and many more associated Groups. - I Think !! I hope this make sense.

Thanks
Habib

dpinink_silva

724 Posts

0

July 2nd, 2007 13:00

My problem is that I do not want the following backup to use the same tape

Habib,

I'm a bit lost here. Do you want that each group uses a different tape? Let's say:

Group1 -> Tape1
Group2 -> Tape2
...
Group13 -> Tape13

Then you will eject Tape1 and Tape2, and in the next day:

Group1 -> Tape14
Group2 -> Tape 15 etc etc

When you say that your backup will fill onto one tape, are you talking about all your backup groups, or are you telling that each group will not use more than one tape?

vsemaska

194 Posts

1

July 2nd, 2007 14:00

Habib,

How are you with writing scripts? We have a similar situation so what we did is write a script to parse the nsrjb output and search for tapes left in the library. If any are found we mark the tapes read-only via nsrjb. That way NetWorker is forced to use a different tape. We run the script in cron (UNIX) shortly before the start of the nightly backups.

Vic

benzino1

244 Posts

0

July 2nd, 2007 23:00

Habib,

I think you don't have to have 28 different pools. Here is what I thing (how I understand that):
1. you have many clients which amount of backup data fits onto one LTO tape.
2. you want to backup it every day. you want to also to direct all backups to one tape.
3. after finishing the backups (and before start another) you want to take this tape offsie
4. when next backups starts you want it also to direct onto one tape which should be (after all day backups) taken offsite

My suggestion:
1. configure backups to ONE pool (let's say BackupPool)
2. configure automedia management on library and set proper target session on drives to NOT allow networker to use more that one tape to collect backups streams
3. let's say that all backups you want to perform before the next cycle end at 9:00 am. You have to prepare a script (or do it manually) to withdraw a tape to which backups go to
4. when next backup cycle begins Networker will notice that there is no tape available (because it is offsite - you have withdrawed it) for a backup and takes another tape (label it and mount). All backups goes to that new tape.
5. before 9:00 am you will withdraw this second tape

if you want to take tapes which were taken offsite back to business after all backups on it expires just deposit them back to library and RELABEL to "BackupPool".

I hope this helps.

HabibG2

455 Posts

0

July 3rd, 2007 01:00

Thank you all for your valuable suggestions.

Piotr,

As it is I have only one pool but I have created 13 Groups, one per server as each server has to be backed up at different time of the day. All the 13 servers backup will fit onto one tape.

Where do I configure automedia management on library and set proper target session on drives to NOT allow NetWorker to use more that one tape to collect backups streams?

I have looked into library properties on the "Advance" tab and saw the Available slot field..etc.

BTW I am fairly new to NetWorker and have not done any scripting so far.

What sort of script would I need to first identify the tape in question and eject it to the I/O slot so it can be removed.

Thanks for your help.
Habib

benzino1

244 Posts

0

July 3rd, 2007 03:00

Habib,

Even if you have 13 groups configured you can still direct backups to one pool and one tape. At the client definition you have a filed "backup command". You have to enter there : save -b name_of_the_pool and all backups will be redirected to one pool (you can also get this through setings of pool resource configuration).
Auto media management you can set in jukebox resource, target session on device resource.
The script should have following algorithm:
1. check which tape was used for the last backup (daemon.log, mminfo)
2. withdraw this tape (you have to go to the library cap and remove the tape for offsite) - you can do this with nsrjb command (nsrjb -j juke_name -w -T volume_name).

Next time backup starts it will notice that there is no tape available for the pool you want to use and automatically label and mount a tape for a backup.

Of course you can do this manually. You can find out which tape is needed and withdraw it by hand.

dpinink_silva

724 Posts

0

July 3rd, 2007 12:00

Get the number of savesets you will have running at the same time, and use this value as Target Sessions in the tape drive configurarion. Nw will send streams to a device until it reachs it's Target Sessions value, then will redirect the other ones to another device.

HabibG2

455 Posts

0

July 6th, 2007 03:00

Daniel,

Each day, all thirteen Groups will to use only one tapes.( I know that all the data will fit ).

I have so far loaded all 28 volumes ( 4 weeks backup) in the library and made them all Read Only, except for one.

Each day at the end of the backup, I want to be able to eject the tape to the I/O slot to be taken off site. It would be good if I make the tape Read Only at the same time. I will then need to make the next volume appendable/recycle.

I want to be able to do this on the mounted volume automatically without having to enter the Volume Id or any other information. May be a batch file in the Post command (savepnpc) in the last job.

Thanks for your help.
Habib

HabibG2

455 Posts

0

July 26th, 2007 01:00

I have change the mode of all my tapes to be Read Only but one for the day backup.

Is there any way I can eject a tape straight after a backup job . I am thinking in the line of savepnpc and include 'nsrjb -u' in a batch file to run as a post command?

Thanks
Habib

ble1

14.3K Posts

0

July 26th, 2007 02:00

nsrjb -u will unload tape. To export it you will need to use nsrjb -w -S after unload has finished.

S

sknolin

16 Posts

0

July 26th, 2007 14:00

As others mentioned, you can just withdraw with the -w

If for some reason you really just want to mark it readonly, you can maybe use
nrmm -o readonly -y volume_name

I'm not certain about that -y

You could run your desired command from legato's Notifications feature after savegroup completion (on unix, I am guessing you could do this on windows server too). Better might be to have the notification dump to a file and call a script that does what you want with that file (email it to you and tell you to get the tape?), and then withdraws tape.

DA

117 Posts

0

July 26th, 2007 18:00

I am relatively new to NetWorker, but I wanted to expand on Hrvoje's point. Generally, the backup is faster, if you have multiple savesets (streams) going to the same tape at the same time, i.e. multiplexing. Usually, one saveset, especially over LAN, will not provide enough data for the OPTIMAL speed of the tape drive. In fact, the tape might even go back-and-forth (a.k.a shoe-shining) because it cannot slow down enough otherwise. The downside of multiplexing is going to be a slower recovery, since your savesets will be multiplexed throughout the tape.

HabibG2

455 Posts

0

August 8th, 2007 06:00

Thank you all.

How can I EJECT the tape immediately after a backup has terminated, while the tape is still in the drive?

Can I do this with SAVEPNPC, if so how?

This way I can eject the tape immediately after my last backup.

Thanks
Habib

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