need backup to tape for a year

@pob , Yes this is very do-able!
Here are the high level steps:

- Get the robotic arm and table drive zoned to the server hosting your backup server or a media server that can be configured as a storage node in NetWorker.

- After ensuing that the TL has been configured properly at the system(OS) level, create the Tape Library and Tape drive in NetWorker.

- Create a pool to be used, please dont mix this with other devices.

- Configure the backup/clone action to use this pool.

Why not first start with sifting through the actual NW manuals to get an idea what needs to be done? And if and when you have questions about the actual implementation come back? Also things might be different depending on the NW version as between NW8 and NW9 there was a huge difference of approach, when shifting towards a policy based engine. So NW version being used matters here... even though high level things are still similar.

Do I read correctly that you'd have only one tape? So no tape library but only one tape drive? As you state removing the lto6 tape once a year as it would be enough to for a whole year of backups? You have to consider and take into account however if you only have one device and one tape, if that one tape breaks, you might loose a whole year of backup? This while NW also offers data to be cloned, but that at least requires a 2nd backup device and backup volume...

The whole nw19.7 doc portfolio https://dl.dell.com/content/manual36554073-networker-19-7-documentation-portfolio.pdf?language=en-us or the admin guide specifically online: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/networker/nw_p_nwadmin/preface?guid=guid-cfbac7bf-962d-4cac-b0dc-53707fe31149&lang=en-us and pdf : https://dl.dell.com/content/manual51539617-networker-19-7-administration-guide.pdf?language=en-us&ps=true

crazyrov, thank you very much for high level steps...

the library is in place... the solution is under full Dell support ...

Eventually, I became a part of the backup team that covers the location to which I deployed the server in question. I have access to Networker and quickly discussed my scenario for the server in Team meeting.

One guy was against it just after word ONE tape per year :).

I don't see nothing wrong and of course will explain my point of view in written form.

What is your opinion based on all what I described above about my approach with one tape per year.

Thx.

Dear Barry,

Probably you missed the word LIBRARY in my point 1.

1. to append daily backup to one tape staying in the library.

YES one LTO6 will be more than enough about 200 GB of DATA per year.

The DATA will be kept on DD for 4 weeks. Than will be clone to tape. 

The requirement for the project is : The DATA must be archived for 5 years period.

With all above I feel that keeping backup for a year on one tape provides advantages:

1 Tape per year for backup and arhiving (not disperesed backup on multiple tapes with rotation)

no human intervention on daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Even if the tape (itself) with such a "terrible" usage (200GB per year) fails as you mention (I think you have more chances to win a Loto :)) - it's not a problem. Because the original Data is kept on App Server and the tape could be replaced and updated with whole year period.

In my scenario appending new data to tape daily will provide the option for restore in case the data is corrupted on server. Again, I plan to keep 4 weeks backup on DD.

Do you see something really bad or other week points. What from your point of view will be a better scenario.

I applied this approach 3 years ago in other remote location but with VEEAM in place.

I believe it responds to main requirement (5 years archiving) and provides adequate backup solution.

2 factors come to my mind.

• Because the tape cannot be reused if full for the duration of the retention of the last backup with the highest retention in your tape.
• Also, Tapes are susceptible to damage over time, so in case anything of that happens all your data on that tape would be lost.

We are after all backup folks, so try to avoid scenarios of backup data loss as much as possible.

Aha, indeed overlooked the library part. So you have a tape library even though all data nicely fits unto 1 single tape for a whole year? Still a small library? Only one tape drive or more? As then you could still clone data still to have a 2nd copy, which is easily achieved. However if you clone it from tape to another tape, you need 2 tape drives...

The thing with a very large environment is that we would be taking over hundreds of tapes containing data. It is less likely that all data ends up on one single tape, hence the backup from yesterday might not be located on the same tape as today's or last weeks backup. While in your case it would be.

At our scale tapes broke rather regularly. As did tape drives and robotic arms. But all-in-all it was never truly a lot of data being lost (relatively speaking that is, compared to all data on tape). In a smaller shop however that would be different. One tape breaking might mean all backups from a whole year (even if the most recent data is still on the DD for the last month, there is a valid business reason to keep LTR data?), which is easily mitigated by cloning the data to a 2nd tape. Not really an enormous expense would it, except if you only have one tape drive... assuming that you have even enough slots that is?

Thank you guys for your thoughts...

2nd tape is exactly what I am going to suggest (preparing some Visio schema for adding to project documentation backup part).

So I see it as simple as that:

2 tapes in one pool with assigned job for daily backup with APPEND option.

Tapes should be marked for example as "Project_name 1" and "Project_name 2".

Then a member of the team responsible for tape rotation will pull out 1 and place 2 once a week - Friday.

A week of missing data will append to 2 during first nightly backup (not huge amount).

2 tapes will provide kind of disaster recovery protection (one of them will be always off site, second available for a restore for a time above 1 month available on DD).

And on Dec 31 one tape will be pulled out for archiving with the passed year mark and a new one will be added to the pool.

I didn't touch Library yet, just took a quick look on the NetWorker environment. What I saw that the Library shown as IBM :). My collegue told that it's actually DELL library (with IBM inside :)).

Probably it will be me who will have an honor to set up this on Networker.

Sure I will find out the right way to do it (intuitively or with some documentation reading).

If you think that the above idea with 2 tapes make a sense please approve :).

Any suggestions welcome. 

If you don't mind to put step by step clicks for clonning to the library in NetWorker taking in concideration that daily backup to DD storage is in place and there is a policy for daily backup it will be fine.

I think that the common things as pool and job present in Networker and Append option is there too.

BTW the idea with one tape that I applied 4 years ago for a similar project was on remote site with less stuff, so I didn't want to add such a heavy charge as changing additional tape weekly. Probably even for that site I will recommend to introduce a second tape.

Thanks again.

Michael.

Cloning operation is pretty much the same when its comes to configuration. This should help you - https://youtu.be/ZgjOMKHM-D0

Thank you very much... will watch the vid.