Feature Request: Reserving drives on media pools configuration for restore operation

[bct44]

Hello,

Let me give you an example of my scenario:
- Tape Library 10 drives
- Parralel processing
- Scheduling during the day
- Multiple jobs (File to tape, Backup to tape) could run at the same time during the day
- Operator can have a restore from tape during the day

I need to allocate the maximum of drives for both backup and restore in the media pools. I can restrict the number of drives used in the file/backup to tape jobs.

If multiple jobs are running during the day and an operator need to ingest offline tapes or restore, he could be stucked and need to wait jobs to end.
I would love to be able to be able to a have more possibilities in the configuration wizard of the media pools.
It could be allocate the maximum of drives but two more lines:
- Backup jobs processing, number of drives
- Restore operation, number of drives
It could give me the opportunity to let an amount of drives always available for restore.

Another idea could be to be able to pause file/backup to tape jobs when a restore is started.

Regards,
Bertrand.

[Dima P.]

Hi Bertrand,

Interesting idea, thank you for sharing. To make sure I got it right - you are ready to keep X drives constantly available for restore, thus sacrifice your backup to tape throughput as such rule would literary block the drive from being used for backup?

[bct44]

Hello Dima,

Yes it's the idea, i think the sacrifice is worth it. Restore is always the top priority, i think it could be an advantage for enterprise customer specially when running multiples librairies and drives.

[Dima P.]

Understood! I've noted a feature request based on your post. Thank you!

[jr.maycock]

I would like to place a second vote for this feature request to permanently reserve a configurable number of drives in a multi-drive library as an exclusive resource for on-demand restore workloads, making those reserved drives inaccessible to service any backup workloads so the drives are never a possibly conflicted resource. I think this may be better implemented at the Library properties / configuration level instead of the media pool level, because then the reserved drive count configuration would be consistent across any number of media pools created on the same library.

[Dima P.]

Thank you for sharing jr.maycock! Added your vote to this feature request!