Hi there,
I am new to Backup Exec and so far I believe I am doing pretty well at getting to know it. We have a Dell PowerVault TL2000 tape library, a dedicated server running Backup Exec 12.5, a bunch of barcoded tapes and a bunch of backup jobs that can be classed into 3 main groups (mail, file server & general).
Here is how I currently have everything running, still in testing. Questions are at the bottom.
*** The TL2000 is partitioned in Backup Exec
- Partition 1: Slots 1-5 for MAIL DAILY tapes
- Partition 2: Slot 6 for MAIL WEEKLY tapes
- Partition 3: Slot 7 for MAIL MONTHLY/YEARLY tapes
- Partition 4: Slots 8-12 for FILESERVER DAILY tapes
- Partition 5: Slot 13 for FILESERVER WEEKLY tapes
- Partition 6: Slot 14 for FILESERVER MONTHLY/YEARLY tapes
- Partition 7: Slots 15-19 for GENERAL DAILY tapes
- Partition 8: Slot 20 for GENERAL WEEKLY tapes
- Partition 9: Slot 21 for GENERAL MONTHLY/YEARLY tapes
- Partition 10: Slots 22-23 for CLEANING tapes
Media Sets
- MAIL/FILESERVER/GENERAL DAILY: 5 tapes for each set for weekdays
- MAIL/FILESERVER/GENERAL WEEKLY: 5 tapes for each set, weeks 1-5
- MAIL/FILESERVER/GENERAL MONTHLY: 12 tapes for each set
- Yearly tapes are created when required.
Selections
For the purpose of the GENERAL backup group I have 2 selections, both pointing to different servers. The selections are working as intended.
Policies *
The GENERAL policy is a grandfather-father-son policy which contains Daily, Weekly and Monthly templates.
- Daily runs each weekday, is directed to partition 7 (slots 15-19) & media set GENERAL DAILY
- Weekly runs each sunday, is directed to partition 8 (slot 20) & media set GENERAL WEEKLY
- Monthly runs last day of every month, is directed to partition 9 (slot 21) & media set GENERAL MONTHLY
- Monthly supersedes Daily, Monthly supersedes Weekly
- Each template (daily, weekly, monthly) is set to Overwrite media & eject tape
- This policy has created 6 jobs based on the 2 selections we have currently set up
Questions ***
My first question is can I get rid of all those partitions? I would expect Backup Exec to pull tapes based on media set, but what really happened when I tested it was it picked any tape it could find and then assigned it to that media set after the backup had completed. I don’t mind having everything partitioned with jobs pointing to their appropriate one, but makes it a hassle for changing tapes - we now need to make sure that all tapes are in the correct partition. I would prefer to just throw the tapes anywhere into the library based on the rotation and have Backup Exec scan and pull the tapes it needs, when it needs them.
My second question is can’t the policy combine all required selections into a single backup job, overwrite the media, then eject the tape? At the moment the one GENERAL policy has created two backup schedules, one for each policy. After the first backup overwrites and completes it ejects the selected tape, then the second backup starts, picks a different tape (as the previous tape has a new allocation date), overwrites and ejects that second tape. We want all GENERAL selections to go on the same tape, one after the other without overwriting & finally ejecting the tape at the very end. I know we can fix this by combining all selections into one however this makes things a hassle when restoring. We could also create several policies, one for each selection, tell the jobs to append & then have the last job eject the tape - although I think there must be a better way.
Any help/tips/constructive critisism is greatly appreciated in advance.