exclude one tape library

[dweide]

Hello,

is it possible to limit B&R 8 to use one certein library connected to a proxy?

In my setup there are 2 librries connected to the same physical server, one LTO5 and one LTO6.
I would like to restrict B&R to the LTO5 library in order to make sure there is no interference with the traditional tape backup (HP DataProtector) that is using the LTO6 library.

Thanks

[Shestakov]

Hello,
Currently it`s if you have 2 libraries connected to one server, Veeam B&R will rescan and lock to itself both of them.
As a workaround I can suggest you to separate the libraries to different servers(easier solution) or try to find some HP drivers which make the its library invisible for re-scanning.
Thanks.

[Dima P.]

dweide,
Previously in v7 we had a special regkey for this purpose, which disabled the tape rescans (and tape service). We will look into the possibilities of implementing similar key for the cases like yours. Thank you for bringing this up!

[dweide]

dweide,
Previously in v7 we had a special regkey for this purpose, which disable the tape rescans (and tape service). We will look into the possibilities of implementing similar key for the cases like yours. Thank you for bringing this up!

That would be highly appreciated!
Any idea when this fix will be available? With next patch for B&R 8??

[veremin]

No ETA at the moment. Thanks.

[raugustine]

Was there ever a development on this? I have a customer with 2 libraries on the same physical server that need to have one dedicated for Veeam and the other for the product that backs up their physical servers that are non-windows. I can't separate the tape libraries onto separate physical servers, because this physical server has the fiber for their direct SAN access as well.

[Dima P.]

Hello Ryan,
Can you please check if this can be addressed by third party software? I mean, if library is simply added to the console but not used by any tape jobs you should be good to go. Have you seen any issues using both solutions together while both libraries were added to the VBR console?

[raugustine]

So it looks like I jumped the gun a bit based off of how the other product functioned. I thought that because the other product DOES lock the tape library once the program sees it, that Veeam was going to lock the tape library once it scanned it as well. Veeam did not lock the library, and the it was able to still be used by the other product. I will just leave the first library alone and leave its tapes as "Unrecognized" whenever they are scanned. Apologies.

[raugustine]

OK so it appears that there is a need for this after all. When I replace tapes in the second loader used for the Veeam jobs, I cannot rescan that tape library because the other product has the first tape loader locked. When I go to rescan the single library that is used for Veeam, it runs a tape library discovery on both libraries, and fails because the first one is in use. I can't get the rescan to complete until I go into the other product and unlock the tape library that it is using first. It's doable as a workaround, but having to log into the physical server, open the software, and unlock the tape library any time I need to rescan is definitely an inconvenience. It would definitely be useful to be able to exclude one of the tape libraries from within Veeam or through a registry change. Hope this helps.

[Dima P.]

Ryan thanks for sharing your findings! We will discuss the described behavior with the team.

[lde]

Hi All,

I have Veeam Backup&Replication v8.0.0.2030 installed and now want to add a Tape server.
The process 'Discovering tape libraries' failed due to an error 'Access denied'.

The tape server is a TSM server. To this TSM server are 3 libraries connected;
- one old library IBM TS3310 but still used by TSM
- one new library IBM TS3100 also dedicated for TSM
- one new library IBM TS3100 dedicated to use for Veeam

So, out of these 3 libraries I just want one to be used by Veeam. But as I understand Veeam tries to scan the whole (tape)server and wants to add all the libraries automatically.
But as 2 out of 3 are already in use, Veeam receives an error 'Access denied' because they are blocked by TSM.

So my question is: Is there a workaround (somebody had this issue also?) to solve this issue? So I am able to select the library I want?!

I've opened a call for this (Case # 01068632)

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards.

[veremin]

If possible, I'd recommend attaching the said device to a different physical server and using it solely with Veeam in order to avoid situations when one or the other solution locks all libraries. Thanks.

[lde]

Hi,

So for the moment there is no workaround for this issue except choosing another tape server for the job?
Veeam should give the user the ability to select the tape library he/she wants to add in the GUI.
I'll try to submit a 'Request for improvement'. How to do this easily?

Thanks in advance.

[veremin]

You've already made one by writing this post, as these forums are perfect place to submit whatever feature request you might have. Those are prioritized based on customers' demand. Thanks.

[futureweb]

I second this request, sometimes it's just good. For instance, if you have to connect your old backup software for restores and don't want to keep an old server running, or also virtualize the old server,
or if you want to use LTFS for some Jobs, again, a 2nd Server wouldn't really make sence of means additional investments. We for instance purchased a 2nd SAS Card, that was plugged in into our production server to be able to split the library.
Usually you want to keep such things away from your production server, but also we didn't want to invest in an additional server just for "sometimes".

[veremin]

We keep collecting requests regarding that functionality. So, thank you for the feedback; appreciated.

[dweide]

Any new Options about this in V9?

[Dima P.]

Hi dweide,

No changes. Can you elaborate are you using multiple backup applications or want to use multiple tape libraries between multiple VBR instances? Thanks.

[dweide]

We have two tape libraries attached to the same Server.
One library is exclusivly for Veeam, the second exclusivly for anothe backup solution (HP DataProtector).

With V9 I can disable the drive within that second library, but the library itself is still visible.
It would be nice not to have that second library appearing in Veeam.

Thanks!

[Dima P.]

True story. If you disable the changer driver is should failover to scsi commands. May I ask why you keep using DataProtector when you got Veeam B&R installed?

[dweide]

.... May I ask why you keep using DataProtector when you got Veeam B&R installed?

I see where you are heading to, but I am really very reluctant to ditch the DataProtector.

Operating both System in parallel has been stable an reliable for several years and we do feel much more on the safe side using two independant Systems......

[veremin]

Currently to achieve what you're after you'd probably need to connect devices to the different servers. Otherwise, issues caused by presence of different software on the same machine are expected. Thanks.

[pkelly_sts]

I'm also now starting to venture into using Tape support in Veeam but am having similar locking issues even though I also have two physical tape libraries connected to the same server.
My arguments for better locking support/handling are as follows:

1) The tape drive is connected directly to the server that is also our repository server, which in turn is also SAN-attached. So I want to be able to back up to LTO-6 at the fastest possible speed direct from disk & want/need to avoid sending any traffic over the LAN from repository to a dedicated tape server (dedicated only because Veeam won't play nice with sharing/managing libraries). The existing backup software (BExec) also needs to be near to disk as I'm currently doing B2D2T for some servers as backing up some of them directly is too slow for LTO-6 minimum streaming speed.

2) Much as I might like to switch everything over to Veeam, I'm NEVER going to be allowed to do it without extensive testing/POC which means I have no choice but to run both solutions in parallel during the testing period.

3) My plan is to reduce/remove physical servers as much as possible & have everything running in VMs. It's hard to argue the case if I'm asking for two physical tape servers...

[veremin]

Thank you for the feedback; appreciated.

Though, nothing has changed since my latest reply - the usage of different servers is still required to let applications work independently without causing problems.

[antasik]

Is it so hard to implement "disable" check box on library object with exclude logic in tape service? Realy? Veeam, you should get better than competitors!

[Shestakov]

Hello antasik and welcome to the community!
Thanks for your feedback, it`s taken into account.