Infinity tapes used till full 1

[Calz]

If for example I force some half used tapes to an infinity expiry date will Netbackup carry on using the tape till it's full and also anything new written will have an expiry date of infinity?

Example:-
Tape AAA123 is half full
bpmedialist -summary
says it will expire 14/4/08

I run
bpexpdate -d 0 -host host2 -force -m AAA123

Will any more data be written to the tape and what expiry will it have?

 

[Stumpr]

better check that syntax. looks like you just expired the tape; not set it to infinity..

Bob Stump
VERITAS - "Ain't it the truth?"

 

[Calz]

Copy and paste typo, replace 0 with infinity but the question still stands...

 

[RustyMajor]

The tape will continue to be used with the original retention level because this is kept in the metadata of the image header. Using the date options of bpexdate do not change this info. For instance, if it was originally rl 5 and that equates to 2 weeks, NBU will continue to use the tape for other 2 week/rl 5 backup jobs.

If you use the recalculate option of bpexpdate and specify a retention level that is infinite, the above is no longer true.

The expiration date of the tape will be set to the expiration date which is furthest in the future.

 

[Calz]

Thanks, still need a little clarity /

If I use the command specified "bpexpdate -d infinity -host host2 -force -m AAA123"

All images/backups on the tape will then not expire. Any new backups that can make use of that tape will also be written to it until it's full and have an expiry date of infinity?

Bottom line we're running backups with RL of 2 months then manually switching these to Infinity, I want to maximise the use of the tapes so don't want to switch them to infinity if it means the tape doesn't get written to or anything new doesn't adopt the infinty applied.

PS we're not looking to change the way the backups run, the process as describes is 'how it is' )

 

[RustyMajor]

No, any new backups that use that tape will still keep their own retention level of 2 months.

I don't understand why you are manually changing these to an infinite retention? I'm sure you have your reasons, but doing it that way leaves a lot of room for error. Why not just change the retention in the policy to infinite? You could also use Vault, or bpduplicate if your company doesn't want to spring for the Vault license, to automate that process? I'm sure you have your reasons and "it is how it is" but just because you do something that way and have always done it that way doesn't mean it's the right way.

Tapes are not so expensive that setting your rl's properly will break the budget. Justify it this way, how much time do you spend jacking with changing the rl versus how much tapes cost? More to that point, how much would it cost you if just one of those backups expired because they did not get changed to infinite?