Can't mount tape, and can't open support ticket

[MikeLeone]

I'm having a weird problem. I go to my.veeam.com and try and open a ticket, and the products listed do not contain the Backup and Replication product, even though it shows my license, and shows that I am subscribed for that product. So I can't open a case, and I can't call phone support without a case opened on the web. Very Catch-22 ...

Anyway, while I try and figure out how to get some paid help, I thought I would ask here. I have a job that writes to tape. It seems to have filled the tape, and is saying to mount a new tape. But I don't know why it's not automatically adding a tape from the same pool (there are 5 tapes in the pool, with free space on them), nor do I see anywhere where I can eject out the current tape and mount a new tape. Clicking on the tape drive in the tape library doesn't provide me any option to do any tape operations like that.

I'm very new at Veeam, but I have been using EMC Networker for 15 years, and other before that, so I'm not new to backup software. But I can't for the life of me figure this out. And yes, I have looked inthe documentation, and no, its not helping, or I wouldn't be looking like a fool and asking for help.

Anyone? For either the tape issue, or how to be able to open an actual ticket??

[Regnor]

If you go to the license management in your account, are you listed as the license administrator there?
If so, and you still cannot chose the product for a support case, you can open a General Inquiry case and let Veeam check your account.

Regarding your issue.
Are the tapes you've mentioned maybe currently protected? Veeam can only append backups to used tapes if the media set isn't closed and therefore the tape protected. Besides that Veeam will automatically use free or expired tapes available in the media pool.

[MikeLeone]

Apparently I am not listed as "Case Admin", meaning I can't open cases. I had no idea, I'm just the tech guy. LOL I have requested my boss to add me.

As for the tapes, no, they're not protected, that I can see. How can I tell? I didn't protect them, and 2 of the remaining 4 are listed as having over a TB free (these are LTO-7 tapes). I can see that they're not expired.

What I don't understand, is why can't I find an option to mount a tape? I have 5 tapes in the pool. If I go to Tape Infrastructure, Media pools, I see all of them. Yet I can see no way (from here) to tell Veeam to mount one of these tapes .... Right clicking gives me no mount or unmount, the "Move" is only to another pool or to free. I must be missing something simple, I do these operations all the time in EMC Networker (manually mounting/unmounting tapes, it automatically mounts another tape from the same pool when needed, etc). Yet Veeam isn't doing that (for me). So it must be something I am doing wrong, since the program must have that capability ....

[Regnor]

Could you share the media set configuration of your media pool? As soon as a new media set is created the retention starts and you cannot append any backups to those tapes.
Manually mounting a tape isn't possible as everything is managed automatically within the media pool or media set.

[MikeLeone]

Retention for my Media Pool is set to never overwrite data (it's a legal requirement, don't ask). Under options, I have "enable parallel processing" and "enable parallel processing within a single tape job". And that's all I see.

Media pool name: PHACLONE
Media pool description: Default pool for tapes cloned from disk backup.
Created by PHA.PHILA.GOV\MJL-Priv at 3/16/2023 3:00:00 PM.
Tapes count: 5
Capacity: 11.4 TB
Remaining: 3.1 TB
Libraries: QUANTUM Scalar i3-i6 282G (Active)

[Regnor]

And when do you create a new media set?
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

[MikeLeone]

It's set to what I presume is the default, create new media set for every backup session. I suppose what I really want is to continue the current media set.

Thanks for that. It still doesn't explain why it wouldn't automatically mount a new tape, when it started a new backup session ...

[Regnor]

With that setting, the media set is closed after each backup session and no further data can be appended to those tapes.
Combined with "never overwrite", you will run out of usable tapes and at some point need to exchange all tapes with new/unused ones.

With the first setting "Do not create, always continue using current media set", Veeam will write to each tape till it's full, then close the media set and protect it according to your retention (forever).
In your case you would either have to start with new tapes or overwrite the existing ones, as you can't change the media set configuration after it got closed.

[MikeLeone]

"Combined with "never overwrite", you will run out of usable tapes and at some point need to exchange all tapes with new/unused ones."

Oh, I know. LOL Not my choice, we write tapes, and never recycle them, necessitating always buying new ones. It's a legal directive from on high, nothing I can do about it.

So since I'm just starting out with Veeam, and there are only 5 tapes in the pool at the moment, you're saying I would have to erase/re-label all those tapes, and then the job would automatically mount new tapes from the pool (presuming I make the media set setting change)? Yes, I would still need retain tapes forever, and don't overwrite any tapes. But this would allow Veeam to fill up a tape, then eject it and load in another, as needed? Automatically just get a tape as it needs to, from any tape in the pool that is not yet used? Or not yet filled up, I guess?

[Regnor]

Yes that sounds right. If you change the media set setting, Veeam will apply it to all future tapes and fill those to 100%. Used tapes need to be erased or marked as free, this means you will lose the existing backups on those tapes.

Just one addition, if you're planing to rotate the tapes regularly (which you should). As soon as you remove a tape from the library, Veeam will also close the media set and you can't append any data/backups to it anymore.

[MikeLeone]

I erased all the tapes (since I'm just starting utilizing Veeam, that's fine). And changed the job entry. So hopefully now, it will just keep loading and unloading tapes automatically, as needed.

I would love to rotate tapes. But we are forbidden to do so. If I do rotate the tapes, I would have to manually erase them (or mark as free?) before I can re-use them. (I'm guessing - that's how it works with EMC Networker, which is what I am used to, and I imagine other enterprise grade backup programs). Networker refers to that as "re-labeling" the tapes, which is can do automatically, if the saveset (their term) has expired.

[Regnor]

I hope it works now as expected; looking forward to your feedback.

Regarding the rotation. Probably the wording is a bit different in Networker. I was referring to the process of removing the tapes out of the library and storing them in a safe, offline place.
As long as you keep the tapes inside the library they can be erased, for example by a malicious actor.