Tape Library Append Order

[Nauthiz]

Hi there,

we use ASO 2000 with a compaq DLT tape library. Each night we run a large number of jobs which are all set to overwrite on a different tape, as a result the 9 tapes are often not enough.

We have considered using append rather than overwrite to try and get more efficient use of the tapes. Has anyone expereince with this? Is there any way to control what jobs end up on the different tapes?

 

[tapemeister]

Each tape would have to have a unique name, different from the others.

These tapes should be mounted in the libraries. When the job is scripted, under destination, highlight the tape that is to be used. In options, select overwrite for the first and append for each after.

Personnaly this would work it a 6.61 environment, but in 2000, I am having issues with the append to tape feature.

But appending would definately preserve tapes.

 

[tbeeber]

An even better solution would be to divvy up the availble slots into device groups, and then assign the destination of your jobs to the appropriate device group. Make sure you leave the media name as "*".

This way the jobs will use whatever tape is in a given slot, You'll know that Job X went to the tape in slot N.
Also, you won't have to change your job definitions every time you change a tape.

I haven't worked with setting the first job to overwrite, so I don't know how well that works. We have all jobs set to append, and just make sure we have a blank/erased media in the slots whenever we change the tapes, and it will automatically format the tapes and run.

If you need to force an erase at some point in your cycle, look into using chgtest.exe.