Drive Cleaning?

[jimbliss]

Is there or will there be a drive cleaning option:?:

[veremin]

This feature might be introduced in one of the future releases. For now you should use built-in capabilities of your tape device. Thanks.

[mangoworks2002]

Any updates on this?

[Vitaliy S.]

No updates yet.

[viljemt]

Hi,
any updates on this topic?

[foggy]

No updates since Vitaliy's reply a week ago.

[viljemt]

Sorry, I saw date from first post.

[dutch123]

Any update regarding this?

[Dima P.]

Hello guys,
Right now we do recognize the cleaning media and do not take in into processing. Can I encourage everyone to provide more details or background information on this feature request? Are you looking for the possibility to schedule drive cleaning job from the VBR UI? Thanks to all in advance.

[JvZanten]

seeing the reply date from Dima, this feature will not be included in Update 2 of VBR8 I suppose ?

It would be handy the have scheduled or automatic job be able to clean the drive (with counter on how much the cleaning tape has been used)

grtx Johan

[Vitaliy S.]

seeing the reply date from Dima, this feature will not be included in Update 2 of VBR8 I suppose ?

That's correct.

[JvZanten]

damn, sorry to hear, is it already on the wishlist ? and if so any time frame ?

[archambeaud]

Hi,

For me letting the drive manage the cleaning cartridge is ok, but sometimes it decide to clean the drive during the tape backup and the backup to tape job failed.
The job recognize correctly the cleaning tape into the drive and stop the job with a "timeout for device ready".
Then, when a tape job recognize the cleaning tape it's ok if it wait until the drive unload the cleaning tape and continue the tape job.

David

[Dima P.]

David,
So you are saying if a tape job is in progress (and one drive is busy) and you manually perform another drive cleaning the tape job fails?

[archambeaud]

Hi,

Sorry for late reply.

I would said that if a tape job is in progress and the job unload the drive to change the cartridge (because it's full), and a cleaning job is waiting (because the tape loader decides when to clean the drive).
In this case the tape loader load the cleaning tape, do the cleaning and unload it, but in the same time the veeam tape job failed because the tape loaded is not correct, or it times out because it waits too long before a good cartridge.the tape loader load the cleaning tape, do the cleaning and unload it, but in the same time the veeam tape job failed because the tape loaded is not correct, or it time out because it waits too long before a good cartridge.

David

[haslund]

Would be very nice to see option of setting up drive cleaning from inside VBR.

[veremin]

Hi, Rasmus,

Assuming we had that functionality, what in particular would you like to see there?

Thanks.

[JvZanten]

Hi all,

VB&R recognizes the need to clean the drive, so it would be obvious that it could automatically clean it (as an option) when a cleaning tape is available (e.g. when the cleaning tape has a designated slot or a specific label)
a manual cleaning command so the backup operator doesn't need to login to the library's web interface.

grtx Johan

[Erhardt]

Hi, Rasmus,

Assuming we had that functionality, what in particular would you like to see there?

Thanks.

The ability to schedule drive cleaning (eg once a month) or operate with powershell.

[Dima P.]

Thanks guys. By the way, I’ve seen somewhere the ability to trigger auto cleaning by tape drive alert. Do you find it useful or scheduled cleaning is enough?

[StephanF]

In my opinion triggering auto cleaning by tape drive alert is much more important than a fixed schedule. So this function would be highly appreciated here.
LTO tape drives should only be cleaned when the drive says so (= sets the appropriate TapeAlert flag).

[Luscher]

Is this Feature now included in Veeam8? Or is there a Workaround to initiate a clean Job from Veeam?

[Dima P.]

StephanF,

triggering auto cleaning by tape drive alert is much more important than a fixed schedule

Agree! Thanks for the heads up.

Matthias,

Is this Feature now included in Veeam8? Or is there a Workaround to initiate a clean Job from Veeam?

No. Such operation is not supported in the existing versions of the product.

[mike.r]

The demand for an automated tape cleaning is higly expected for years now.
The solution could be very easy:
- recognize a cleaning tape in a designated slot
- put it into a tape, when cleaning is required
- put it back into the slot, when cleaning is done
- continuing the tape backup

So...where is the problem to implement such a feature ?

[Dima P.]

No available R&D resources for this version. Though, request remains valid for the next major version.

[mike.r]

Hm..
at least honest
But unfortunately not very helpfull.

[Dima P.]

Mike,

Thanks. By the way, I bet this could be done via scripting, since we’ve added the pre/post scripts to the tape jobs. A PowerShell script which asks tape device state (before or after tape job starts) and if it returns 'required cleaning' flag trigger the cleaning procedure.

[mike.r]

Good idea, but it is a little bit more complex than that.
For example:
- start a backup to tape job
- backup starts with tape no. 1
- during the backup job the changer sets the flag "cleaning required"
- backup job with tape1 will continue
- but!!! the backup job will not enter tape2 before the cleaning is done
- only chance to get out of the job is to cancel it manually
This is a situation I can not handle with the "before or after Tape job starts" function.

[Dima P.]

Agree. Now this feature request looks like this we need to track the state of the drive and, I assume, if it becomes ‘dirty’ switch to another available drive or if there are no available drives clean the existing one drive and then proceed writing.

[mike.r]

Sounds good.
But the drive needs to be cleaned anyway, regardless another drive is available or not.

By the way: is switching to another (available) drive a feature that would work now ?