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I am backing up two drives on NT 4...they only are about half full of data but my tape backup fails everynite. It tells me that it doesn't have enough space for OFO.
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OFO Errors
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In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?Join the club, OFO is a wild (out of control) beast in 8.6. You can try fine-tuning the OFO parameters based on some suggestions you can find in the support knowledgebase from Veritas. Our success with this though has been partial only. We continue to have this on one particular disk (SAN). Neither Veritas nor outside consultants have been able to tame the beast. We have plenty of disk space left, occupation is at 50% (85 Gb) but yet it fails on each occassion. Anybody who has ran into this and has other tips... very welcome. (We are running NT4 ,SP6a with RA4100 compaq disks attached to a fibre channel switch, backup on SL2020 ait tapes)
Most of the problems I've seen with OFO have to do with one of four things.
1. Improper placement of the "snapshot" on the volume(s)
2. Not enough HD space (in the vol) to hold the "snapshot"
3. OFO minimum/maximum parameters not configured correctly
4. Not enough idle time to create the "snapshot"
By default, BE places the snapshot on the root of the volume that is being backed up. That is fine as long as there is enough free space on the volume in question (10% free space is needed, I think).
If there isn't enough space on the volume to hold the snapshot, then you must override BE and manually assign a location for it to be created by unchecking the appropriate box and typing in the full path to the location of your folder dedicated to OFO.
If you use this feature, you must remember that the snapshot probably won't be able to "grow" properly.
In the wizard, once you decide where the OFO static volume (snapshot) will reside, you can set the minimum and maximum size for the volume to grow.
If you manually assign the location, you should set both of these fields to the same value (a high one). As long as the volume never fills up to that amount you'll be OK. If it does, just adjust the sizes up until you find a setting that works. The important thing is to remember that both numbers must be the same.
If you let BE assign the location itself (on the root of the volume), then you can use the following formula to "estimate" the needed sizes:
(Num of FILES backed up) X 0.005 = (Minimum OFO Volume size needed)MB
and
(Free RAM)MB / 0.04 = (Max OFO Volume size capable in)MB
That takes care of the first three issues. The last one is a caryover from BE 7.x. By default, BE waits for a continuous block of "idle time" before creating a snapshot. Out of the box this item is set for 5 seconds. I've found that this number must be set down to 2 seconds in order to work. In BE8.5 and 8.6 it will give you a nasty "are you sure" message after you change this setting. Just press <OK> and ignore it.
In older versions of BE, you must tweak a registry key.
The path is something like:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VERITAS\Open File Option\Config
Edit the "MinQuietTime" value and change it from 5 to 2.
The path might be a little different depending on what version you're running, but I believe the "MinQuietTime" value is named the same regardless of version.
One last thing, remember to stop and restart the BE services for any of these changes to take effect.
Good luck and keep us posted.
1. Improper placement of the "snapshot" on the volume(s)
2. Not enough HD space (in the vol) to hold the "snapshot"
3. OFO minimum/maximum parameters not configured correctly
4. Not enough idle time to create the "snapshot"
By default, BE places the snapshot on the root of the volume that is being backed up. That is fine as long as there is enough free space on the volume in question (10% free space is needed, I think).
If there isn't enough space on the volume to hold the snapshot, then you must override BE and manually assign a location for it to be created by unchecking the appropriate box and typing in the full path to the location of your folder dedicated to OFO.
If you use this feature, you must remember that the snapshot probably won't be able to "grow" properly.
In the wizard, once you decide where the OFO static volume (snapshot) will reside, you can set the minimum and maximum size for the volume to grow.
If you manually assign the location, you should set both of these fields to the same value (a high one). As long as the volume never fills up to that amount you'll be OK. If it does, just adjust the sizes up until you find a setting that works. The important thing is to remember that both numbers must be the same.
If you let BE assign the location itself (on the root of the volume), then you can use the following formula to "estimate" the needed sizes:
(Num of FILES backed up) X 0.005 = (Minimum OFO Volume size needed)MB
and
(Free RAM)MB / 0.04 = (Max OFO Volume size capable in)MB
That takes care of the first three issues. The last one is a caryover from BE 7.x. By default, BE waits for a continuous block of "idle time" before creating a snapshot. Out of the box this item is set for 5 seconds. I've found that this number must be set down to 2 seconds in order to work. In BE8.5 and 8.6 it will give you a nasty "are you sure" message after you change this setting. Just press <OK> and ignore it.
In older versions of BE, you must tweak a registry key.
The path is something like:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VERITAS\Open File Option\Config
Edit the "MinQuietTime" value and change it from 5 to 2.
The path might be a little different depending on what version you're running, but I believe the "MinQuietTime" value is named the same regardless of version.
One last thing, remember to stop and restart the BE services for any of these changes to take effect.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Instead of using OFO, can you deselect it and backup with a lock? Would that make it more reliable? I was told that the OFO should not be used with Exchange. My friend and a couple of websites say that OFO is just a major problem. Let me know your thoughts.
You can deselect the option if you choose. It would certainly cut down on the OFO errors you see, but of course, you wouldn't be using the full functionality of the plugin.
I'm not very well versed in Exchange, but I do know that there is a BE agent for backing it up. As long as this is loaded and running well I don't see a problem with backing up the rest of the files with a lock.
I'm not very well versed in Exchange, but I do know that there is a BE agent for backing it up. As long as this is loaded and running well I don't see a problem with backing up the rest of the files with a lock.
OFO is a beast, especially with SQL and Exchange agents. I had to call Veritas 5 days in a row speaking to 8 different techs. The last guy finally got it right. They were all telling me diffrernt stories. My main error was making sure to deselect any sql databases except for the containers that the SQL agent gets. As far as Exchange goes OFO can work but it is redundant because the Exchange agent is already backing up the store and mailboxes which are open files. Basically the OFO just grabs a few system files that are open and the SQL and Exchange agents are really specified OFO Agents. My backups are running great with 100% success. My next headache will be testing and restoring with IDR!!! Its a good thing I have unlimitied support .
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