Naming new tapes and displaying them in library

Phani6039,

When you ordered the tapes did you also order bar code labels for them or did they come with them included?

Your current tapes will have bar codes on them going up to A00099 and as long as the new bar codes do not clash with these you should be able to just insert the new tapes into the library and providing NetWorker jukebox is set to AutoMedia Management “Yes” and Match Barcodes to Labels is also selected NetWorker will pick up the new tapes when required, label and use.

Use import function to get the tapes into the library or you will have to inventory the library if depositing via different method.

Regards,

Bill Mason

Phani,

If you select Auto Media Management (AAM) to “Yes” this has two functions within NetWorker: -

1. It will automatically pick up “scratch” tapes/volumes and label them for use with backups/clones. By scratch this is a tape volume which does not have a Networker label written to the beginning of the tape.

2. If pool are set to recycle tapes to/from other pools it will also label a recyclable volume from one pool into another.

If you have no restrictions on how you want volumes labeled (some Customers like to use specific ranges for particular pools but this is unusual) then if you have barcodes on the actual tapes themselves all you need to do is to get them into slots within the jukebox and your away. To enable AAM simply select from properties and you will see green tick appear like for bar code reader.

To get them into slots its best to use deposit command from GUI or command line but this means your jukebox must have a “Cartridge Access Port/s (CAP)” which allow tapes to be inserted/removed without physically opening the door and doing manually. If you don’t have CAP and some jukebox models don’t you need to manually open, take out/put in and inventory the jukebox after this has been done to ensure everything gets updated. With new nsrlcpd process this should happen automatically to make jukebox to ready status but I have always done quick inventory afterwards also just to be sure (personal preference).

Scratch tapes will appear with * and barcode within the slot details until they are labeled.

If you are not sure if your jukebox has a CAP or not use sjirdtag command to see. B.t.l is the scsi address of the robotic arm for the jukebox, in my case 8.0.0 There should be an Import/Export section at the very end of the output (see below) which details how many slots available for taking volumes in/out (I have 5 on this jukebox). There are 4 sections: -

Data Transport: Tape drives

Storage: Jukebox slots

Media Transport: Robotic Arm

Import/Export: CAP slots

e.g.

1. sjirdtag 8.0.0

Tag Data for 8.0.0, Element Type IMPORT/EXPORT:

Elem[001]: tag_val=0 pres_val=1 inp_enab=1 exp_enab=1 access=1 full=0 imp_exp=0

Elem[002]: tag_val=0 pres_val=1 inp_enab=1 exp_enab=1 access=1 full=0 imp_exp=0

Elem[003]: tag_val=0 pres_val=1 inp_enab=1 exp_enab=1 access=1 full=0 imp_exp=0

Elem[004]: tag_val=0 pres_val=1 inp_enab=1 exp_enab=1 access=1 full=0 imp_exp=0

Elem[005]: tag_val=0 pres_val=1 inp_enab=1 exp_enab=1 access=1 full=0 imp_exp=0

If you have someone over in the data centre and cannot get there yourself you could get them to load the CAP slots with volumes and you can tell remotely if the volumes have bar codes on as you will see the bar code reported between the Elem Addresses.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Bill Mason

Hi Bill,

Spoken with the guys in the data centre and it seems that we got the tapes without bar codes, so at the moment they are try to find out what happened and order new set of tapes with bar codes on them.

Thanks,

Phani

Phani,

It is also possible to order bar codes labels which you can attach to the Tape cartridges also –you could investigate this unless the first order was incorrect.

Regards,

Bill Mason