Copy from Disk to Tape

[TheTalkingHorse]

Backups from some of our Servers to tape dont work because the data are delivered too slow. Then the tape engine goes to idle-state and often produces tape errors. But its no problem to backup from those slow servers to disk-device.
Ultrabac has a utility to copy directly from disk-device to tape and then use the tape for restores as it was used as the backup-medium. Is this also possible with arcserve2000?
We use AS2000AE SP4 on W2K Server with HP-DLT-Changer.
Greetings,
Andy

 

[ishtorage]

Hello..
If you have SP4 on Arcserve 2000 then you can backup to disk..instead of tape..
for this you need to run the device configuration selecting
file system devices and create a file system before actually
doing the backup..

give this a shot..hope you will be happy about using arcserve..

cheers..
iShtorage.

Explore..Dream..Discover..Win!

 

[speshalyst]

Ishstorage.....

Guess you are getting into the habit of Jumpin the Gun...

If i aint wrong,i guess u are talking about the FS device option...

" The talking horse" .... is talking about copying data
from the FS device to the tape...

the horse definitely is prudent...

We might be able to do this....

perform a "tapecopy" from FSdevice... to tape...

just a thought...

cheers
Speshalyst So it Shall be Written!
So it Shall be Done!!

 

[ekmino]

I think there are some problems with your ARCserve enviroment. Are you running the correct client agents? How have you established that the tape engine goes idle? The tape engine is either running or it isn't. Do you have any errors in the ARCserve log? Have you checked your NIC cards and switches to make sure they are not set to auto/auto? That's the first area I look at for slow backups.

 

[TheTalkingHorse]

Thanks for your fast replies.
I configured a Diskdevice, it works fine. Copying with the AS-commandline-tool tapecopy.exe to tape from this diskdevice also works, but restoring from the generated tape is not possible. Seemes that the Headerfile from the Diskdevice is different from the tape katalog-file. A copy from a diskdevice to another diskdevice works, also copying from one tapedevice to another. I think, that mixing different devicetypes is not possible.
The slow servers in our company are connected via a 500kbit SDSL-WAN to our backup-system, so i have to backup them to disk; backup to tape causes errors, because the tapeengines (Benchmark DLT1) can write only a few blocks, then wait for the next data. This Status results in a mechanical remove from the rotating head until the next data-block is available. Then the tape is repositioned and the next block of data is written. Of course this Idle-mechanism stresses the mechanical components of the tapeengine, and after 15-20 Idle-cycles a scsi-error can occure...Other software (like the very expensive Legato Networker) have a disk-cache for this situation. What AS should do is to adjust the headerfiles in the case of copying from a diskdevice to a tapedevice....

 

[ekmino]

Are you using the client agent as opposed to the network to so the backup? The client agent will push data and may solve your issue.

 

[CiscoGod]

Hello,

I have the same predicament, although I cannot get the tape copy to work at all. After further research, I think what we are looking for is the Replication Option which lets us do data staging. Seems simple enough right? Just that I cannot select this option in the Replication tab.

Here is the info on Replication: (Looks like I need to find this SurviveIT and load it.

ARCserve has been integrated with SurviveIT and the ARCserve Replication option. These products provide High Availability for data and applications by copying data in real-time from a Primary server to a Secondary server. When ARCserve is backing up a server which is acting as a Secondary for a running Replication task, then it can identify which data is replicated and is guaranteed to be identical to the corresponding live data on the Primary. ARCserve can be configured to separately handle replicated and non-replicated data. A separate session can be used to store the replicated data. This session will be configured so that the data will appear as if it had been backed up directly from the Primary server. The options available are:

Back Up Replicated Data: This option will distinguish between replicated and non-replicated data and will create separate sessions for the two types. The replicated data sessions will appear to have been backed up from the Primary server.
Skip Replicated Data: This option will distinguish between replicated and non-replicated data and will only back up non-replicated data.
Ignore Replication: This option will not distinguish between replicated and non-replicated data. All data will be backed up as if it belonged to the Secondary. Note that this option will not affect the way that data is backed up on a primary server.

CiscoGod