Script required for moving used media to specified slots

[Tim Leehy]

My environment is: Windows2000 Server, Dataprotector 5.0, MSL 6030 30 Slot LTO Library.

I???m currently using a combination of a DP report which calls a Perl script (see attachment) to eject the media used during the previous nights backup. This is to enable us to move the used media off site each morning with a minimum of intervention from the backup Operator.

Basically at 06:45 a DP report runs which identifies all media used in the previous twelve hours and then calls a Perl script which uses omnimm.exe to eject that media to the mail slot. This is working fine with the result that each morning the operator receives an email (from a separate report) advising of the media used the previous night, and simply opens the mail slot to retrieve the media.

However, a problem arises on the weekends when there is no staff on site to empty the mail slot. If the mail slot is full when the morning report job runs the eject job is queued and any subsequent jobs ??? i.e. the next nights backup will fail/timeout. Also if the morning report did not run on the Saturday, for example, the Saturday nightbackup jobs would append to the Friday night tape.

The easiest way around this as I saw it was to reserve more mail slots - but the ML6030 30 Slot Library we are using only allows one mail slot to be reserved.

What I want to do is reserve 12 slots (i.e. slots 0 ??? 11 as seen by the hardware) in the Left magazine as slots to which the used media can be moved. My reasons for this are two fold ???

1. The twelve slots will be required as the nightly backups begin to span to a second tape ??? so twelve mail slots would allow up to six nightly backups to run without operator intervention ??? as in a long weekend.

2. Splitting the magazine usage as Left Magazine = Media Extraction, Right Magazine = Media Insertion means that users with a minimum of skill can manage the media rotation process.

What I have done is remove slots 0 - 11 from the slots used by DataProtector for backups. This means that no tapes in those slots will be used by DP for backups.

What I need to do is get a perl script that will

1. Check slots 0-11 and determine which are occupied & which are free

2. Move the used media into the next available slot (from 0-11). This would have to accommodate a scenario where more than one tape is being moved each morning.

I'm not sure that a simple eject command will work in this case as it would be trying to move the media to a mail slot - as I said we have a maximum of one available. So it would be more of a move media request.

Has anyone met this requirement already - anyone have a script that would help me?