Help: What is media expiration? 1

[ctheobald]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me the purpose and scheme for NBU automatically expiring media? I find it an additional (annoying >:-<) management task to go back and try to unexpire perfectly good media. I do this because I assume that NBU will not use expired media.

Thanks,
Chuck

 

[comtec17]

NBU will only used Expired or Scratch media. The purpose of expiring is not only media based but image based. When you set your backup to a retention of 2 weeks it will expire that backup out of your database in 14days.

 

[hankmanz]

It strikes me that the term &quot;expired&quot; is misunderstood by the original writer. In fact, NBU will only use a tape on which the images HAVE expired. In 4.5, once all images on the tape have expired, the tape goes back into the Scratch pool from which other volume pools are fed. So you want the images to expire in order to free up the tape(s).

 

[wamason]

My problem is that as far as I am concerned the tape has expired, but NBU does not expire the tape. I have to go in manually and deassign the tape. I do check the tapes befote and they are not in any media or volume database. Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

 

[PGPhantom]

What you could do ...
bpimmedia -mediaid <TapeNumber> -L
Run this command - It will tell you all the information that you need to know in regards to the images on that particular tape as well as the relevant expiration date/times. What you will most liekly find ios that you have an image with a retention longer than you though on that tape.

 

[wamason]

Phanton,

I got 'no entity was found' which leads me to believe that there so other issue with NBU. Any idea what else could be happening?

 

[PGPhantom]

Add the -M options so ...
bpimmedia -mediaid <TapeNumber> -L -M <Master server name>
This will cause it to search your master server.

 

[PGPhantom]

I forgot - Is the tape frozen?
bpmedialist -m <TapeNumber > -h <MediaServer >

 

[wamason]

It's not frozen. Once I find out that the tape has expured, I have to deassign it. This should be done automatically.

 

[PGPhantom]

Ah - I understand what is happening. If you do it manually, you have to perform an expiration and a deassign. See the FAQ here - faq776-3354 = This will explain the full process for you.

 

[wamason]

Phantom,

I can do all this manually. I am wondering why this is not automated. Sometimes it's automated and at other times I have to do it manually.

 

[PGPhantom]

It is automated. They server will automatically delete the images as they expire. Why do you say that it does not expire the tape? Does it have an assigned date attached?

 

[comtec17]

The only time you really need to deassignedbyid is if it has a Catalog Backup written to it.

 

[wamason]

The assigned date is still attached. Catalog backups are not written to the tapes. I have a large environment...350 servers...1 L700 with 20 drives and a L180 with 10 drives. You can imagine the amount of deassignbyid i have to be doing!!

 

[Stumpr]

Are you getting any entries concerning the tapes in the "ALL logs" report?

Bob Stump
Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige

 

[creakyjoe]

in responce to hankmanz above, i found 4.5's handling of tapes returned to scratch only works 50%. ie it works with tapes physically in the robot, but doesn't (imho) work correctly with expired tapes outside of robot ; it puts these 'external' tapes into scratch pool too, which to my mind, is no good as backups can't get at the tapes...

Rich