Tape Autoloaders

[mcloum]

Hi all,

 

I cant get my head around auto loaders. I understand the idea of them and that it changes the tape automatically but not the software side of it.

 

I have Backup Exec with a HP StorageWorks 1/8 G2 autoloader attached. I want to create 3 jobs that do a daily backup (incremental), weekly and monthly. I would want to assign media to each job so when i label the tapes i know that mondays backup is on the monday tape. But i cant find anywhere in Backup exec that allows me to say "this media is to be used on this day for this job" or am i just thinking about the idea of autoloaders all wrong?

 

Cheers

[bossman]

@mcloum:

 

When you go into BE go to the help file at the end and it will show you how to create your jobs templates and then allocate those jobs to the media. It is a little on the heavy side but once you get your head around it you'll be alrite.

 

Keep posting on here if you have any more questions.

[maniac]

I tend to not label the media with days or months etc, just the cases they are in.

 

My tapes are just labelled 001, 002, 003 etc. Backupexec is automatically set to export the last tape used to the tapeloaders loading bay, so all I have to do in the morning is eject it, put it in the right case in the safe, and insert the next tape which is automatically imported into the right slot just before the backup is set to start - It's as fully automated as you can get. If the backup job spans 2 or more tapes, then things get a bit more complecated - the only job I have which does this is my end of month backup, which includes backing up our machine images etc.

 

The best thing about the tape changer is if left for a few days un-attended without the tapes being swapped, you will still get all the necessary backups as it will just chose the next available blank tape until they've all been used. However you won't get this benefit if you allocate specific backup jobs to specific media, as backupexec will try and find the media, relise it isn't there and not complete the backup, unless you've had the foresight to put all the relevant tapes in the tape changer in the first place, but sometimes you just don't have the chance to do this - best to leave it to chose the first available media in my opinion.

 

Mike.

Edited April 21, 2010 by maniac

[mcloum]

Hello,

 

Thanks for the reply. Although i cant find anything to do with assigning media to specific jobs. I have looked at the GFS (Grandfather, Father, Son) policy thinking this looked like what i needed but still nothing within that.

 

Im using Backu Exec 12.5 rev: 2213 which im currently updating to the latest build.

 

Whats the item called on the help menu?

 

sorry to sound dumb but its been a long day and my brain is like treacle at the moment.

[bossman]

I tend to not label the media with days or months etc, just the cases they are in.

 

My tapes are just labelled 001, 002, 003 etc. Backupexec is automatically set to export the last tape used to the tapeloaders loading bay, so all I have to do in the morning is eject it, put it in the right case in the safe, and insert the next tape which is automatically imported into the right slot just before the backup is set to start - It's as fully automated as you can get. If the backup job spans 2 or more tapes, then things get a bit more complicated.

 

The best thing about the tape changer is if left for a few days, you will still get all the necessary backups as it will just chose the next available blank tape until they've all been used - you won't get this benefit if you allocate specific backup jobs to specific media, as backupexec will try and find the media, relise it isn't there and not complete the backup.

 

Mike.

 

Ditto here except we have a 16 tape autoloader which ejects the tapes I request which can then be stored as necessary until ready to use again in rotation. Also read the autoloader manual as this can be quite fiddly depending on which autoloader you have. The autoloader has to be loaded up first and then through BE the media is added to the slots in the devices tab.

 

But anyway just go through the Help>getting started file.

[mcloum]

ok i've setup another GFS policy but for the life of me cant see where to assign media to the jobs? i can assign media to the media sets for appending and overwrite periods but thats about it. someone point me in the right direction Edited April 21, 2010 by mcloum