drive index vs robotic drive number & SSO 2

[itgetsmybackup]

We run a number of large sites with NB4.5 (MP5) using SSO to control a number of LTO drives in storagetek L700 libraries, and I am trying to understand the relationship bewteen the robot drive number, the drive index and the drive path; I had long assumed that the drive index was the same as the robotic drive number (starting from 1) and the drive path is the w2k device path (starting from 0 e.g \.\\tape0), but I am seeing a number of installations in which each media server in the SSO configuration sees the same robotic drive number with the same device path but with a different drive index (eg server A sees Robotic drive 1 on \\tape0 and index 1, whereas server B sees robotic drive 1 on \\tape0 but index 5). Should I worry ? On servers in which rdn=drive index I have no real problems with down'd drives or tapes left in place, whereas where there is a mix, I seem to have sso related problems !?

 

[karthiktvr]

Hi

I dont think there is a limitation to have the same Drive Index numbers when drives are shared in SSO. The only thing is to have common "Drive Names". You will have severe problems with SSO if you donot have common logical drive names.

Thanx & Rgdz
Karthik R.

 

[Stumpr]

Karthik is absolutely correct that the drive names must be the same on each server that shares the drive. I go one step further and ensure that the drive index number (which is a logical number) is also the same. I do this because the NetBackup logs refers to the drives by the index numbers and I want the same index number for consistency in the logs.

 

[itgetsmybackup]

I have reconfigured my SSO via the GUI, and now the drive index aligns with the robot drive number across the board and makes reading error log entries much easier as suggested earlier -BUT- the drives in my library are split such that only the master sees them all; half are available to one set of media servers, half to another. This gives me a minor problem, since the drive index count on the second set of servers starts from one again, and so I can't get perfect correlation. Is it possible to set the drive index to a 'operator choosen' setting to overcome this, perhaps via the command line ?

 

[Stumpr]

I was able to do this in NB3.4 via the GUI.
I would delte the drive and then add it with a chosen index #
I have 2 S700 w/14 DLT's in each
The master could see all 28 and I set the indexs 1-14 and 15-28
I have not found a way to do this in NB4.5
I sent a email request to the user group
veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu
but I did not get any replies.

Bob Stump
Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige