omniback3.1 question to avoid mount requests

[Steve Post]

Omniback is ignoring half empty tapes in the DLT for a media pool. It instead is requesting tapes in the media pool that are offsite.
Is there an easy way I can tell omniback that these off-site tapes should not be used first?...if at all?

Perhaps I need to remove them from the media pool?

I see lots of discussion about allocation order of tapes in the forums. But my request for order would be a lot more simple. I would like every tape in the media pool in the DLT7000-48 has a priority of 1. And every in a locked box miles for the site, should have a priority of Never. Then if THAT works, I would care about backup sizes, number of drives etc.
I'm hoping I'm just missing something obvious.

Thanks if you can help.
Steve

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

Your problem does seem a little strange, however I am not sure how much reading that you have done on the subject either. If you haven't already have a look at pages 80-81 and 94 in the Administrators guide. On page 94 there is some information on pre-allocation lists.

If you don't have the book, you can get it here:

http://ovweb.external.hp.com/lpe/doc_serv/

HTH
-Michael

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi there.
Somewhere in the setup for Devices and Media you have an option Appendable for tapes.
I think, that yours is switched off.
Devices & Media
Configured Media Pools
Media Pools editor
Media Usage Policy

Pls check this one.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Steve Post]

First off, I'm sorry I have not responded back. I have been out for 4 days. Your responses got to me hours after I left.

Michael,
I read the pages you are talking about. The medium is valid for 120 months and allowed 250 overwrites. I would not want to use the preallocation lists of media. As I said, I am asking if there is an EASY way to tell omniback that these off-site tapes should not be used first. Specifying which tapes to use each day is not what I'm looking for. There's only one paragraph about this concept on page 189. It looks like it is set up as part of the backup specification.

Looks to me like I should make a different /opt/omni/lbin/Mount.sh to tell it to: rescan the DLT7000, try again, then fail the backup, when it wants to lock up all the backups with the mount request. But this sounds like I some complex kluge. I would rather flip some switch to tell omniback to use the tapes in the box, instead of requesting outside tapes.

Alexander, I already have the tapes set up as appendable.

Thanks for the suggestions. But still no answer.

[Steve Post]

One year later I have the same problem and see that I put in a forum entry on it. I called hp-support to go through my question one-on-one.

I got my answer. Here it is.

I set allocation policy as loose and appendable.
IF a tape is available in the 48 slot DLT tape library, the backup will use it over a "higher priority" tape. In other words, it will use a tape in the DLT over a tape that is offsite.

AH. But what does AVAILABLE mean? It means ALL of these statements must be true:
The tape has room on it.
The tape is in the DLT.
The tape is NOT in use with another backup.
The tape belongs to the media pool of the requested backup.
The tape is not poor quality.

We have had plenty of tapes in the DLT, but only one tape was left with any room on it that belonged to the media pool I was using. That tape was in use. So......
It makes a mount request. Even if the other job frees up a tape later, it's too late. The mount request stops my backup.

There you have it. So the simple, and fast solution for me is to have plenty of "AVAILABLE" tapes in the DLT. Where "AVAILABLE" is defined up above.

Steve ^_^

[Ted Ellis_2 · Accepted solution]

here is another thought.... we have a 60 slot library and have tapes both onsite, offsite and in the library. When we send a tape offsite... I "move" it into a different media pool than what the backup is configured for. Example would be for the database production pool (tapes in library), when we take a tape and send it offsite for long term retention, that tape would be moved into the "permanent retention" pool. Now the backup will not ask for this tape if it starts to look for a tape with room on it. Always keep 1 or 2 tapes at minimum in the library that do not belong to any tape pool. If the tape pool is appendable and loose, then the process should grab one of these tapes first and do the format automatically.. adding a new tape to the pool. Just a thought.