Feature request: Do not delete tape catalog info ...

[Didi7]

... when tape is moved between different media pools.

Hello, I have another question regarding moving tape media between different media pools. We use robotic libraries here and from time to time, we move tape media from media pools to other media pools. Let's assume that we have the following media pools ...

COMPANY_DI
COMPANY_TM
COMPANY_WF

According to a 'File to Tape Job' the full backups are written to media, which is put into 'COMPANY_WF', the incremental backups are written to media, which is put into 'COMPANY_DI'. Now, from time to time, I would like to move media from 'COMPANY_WF' to 'COMPANY_TM' for monthly tapes, but unfortunately the move results in a tape catalog being deleted. That's just an example. If I would like to restore stuff from an monthly tape, I first need to catalog the tape. In competitors products, you can move tape media between media pools and the catalog is preserved.

Maybe, you could change that behavior in VBR as well. Let the customer decide, if tape catalog info should be removed or not.

Regards,
Didi7

[Dima P.]

Didi7,

Just to clarify, you want to move the media between media pools to increase the retention or to continue the previously written tape?

[Didi7]

Hello Dima,

none of both. In this example, the 'COMPANY_TM' media pool is not used by VBR tape jobs in any way, it's just an example of a media pool, where I would like to move tape media from other media pools, which are used by VBR. In this example, the 'COMPANY_TM' media pool is used for tapes, which contain 'Full Backups' tape media and which are written by VBR on a weekly basis to 'COMPANY_WF'. You can imagine other media pools, like 'COMPANY_TY' as well, which might contain 'Full backups' tape media, which are written by VBR on a weekly basis to 'COMPANY_WF'.

We have a lot of media pools, but only 2 of them are used by VBR. The 'COMPANY_WF' is used for weekly full backups, the 'COMPANY_DI' is used for daily incremental backups. Those 2 media pools are used in a 'File to Tape backup' job, but I would like to be in a position to move tape media from those 2 media pools, which are actively configured in VBR tape jobs, to other media pools, just to have those tape media seperated from the other media pools.

This gives me immediate overview, which tapes are monthly tapes, daily tapes, yearly tapes etc.

Unfortunately, VBR removes the tape catalog info from media, when tape media is moved to another media pool manually, so I need to re-catalog the tape again.

Regards,
Didi7

[Didi7]

Hello Dima, any more thoughts on this?

Regards,
Didi7

[Dima P.]

Didi7,

I got this noted as a feature request, as it makes total sense to me

[Didi7]

Thank you.

Regards,
Didi7

[Didi7]

I am really interested to know, if this feature request has been finally implemented in VBR v9.5 ?

Regards,
Didi7

[Dima P.]

No, it was not. However, this request was added to the list of possible next version’s improvements.

[Didi7]

Next version, means 10.0 or beyond?

[Dima P.]

Most likely v10.

[Didi7]

Currently I needed to re-catalog a tape media, that was not part of a vault, just has been manually moved to another media set, which isn't used by any jobs of VBR. On this media, all incremental *.vib files have been saved from a week (48 files in total), because I use 'per vm chain'. Reading the catalogue with approximately 48 file entries took 23 minutes in a tape library from HP. All went well, but took too much time imo.

It's really annoying to re-catalog tape media that just have been moved to another media set manually. I need to re-catalogue the tape media for the full backups (*.vbk) as well, before I can start a restore to a backup-repository.

Compared to other backup software of competitors, this is on my top wish list, as it saves a lot of time during restore needs.

Of course I could leave tape media in the media set where it was originally put by VBR but to prevent overwrites of tape media that is used for incremental backups, i need to manually move it to other media set and BANG the catalog is deleted.

Moving backup tape media with full and incremental contents to other media sets also provides more overview.

Can you push the feature request, so it doesn't need another year to be integrated?

Regards,
Didi7


Thank