Library-Independent Tapes

[vmtech123]

Hi Markus. It is highly important to follow the exact procedure. If any of steps 2 to 5 is missed, one may observe two tapes with the same barcode, one in the original media pool, another in the Unrecognized. Are you positive all was made precisely as described? Anyway, we are ready review your case as soon as you provide the DB backup.

So if i have 2 libs, one at each site, and I was to run this procedure, I could essentially take my tapes from 1 site to the other for a faster restore and not go over the WAN?

[mkretzer]

@vmtech123 sure - thats a main feature of tape - portability.

[Dima P.]

I could essentially take my tapes from 1 site to the other for a faster restore and not go over the WAN?

Yes you can take tape written at one site and restore from such tape at other site.

mkretzer,
Yup, however it's going to be experimental functionality hidden behind the regkey (so no UI and all checks for duplicated barcodes will be disabled with such registry key).

[mkretzer]

Who needs UI toggles when you can have Library-Independent Tapes - best V12 Feature (ok, maybe after Postgres backup)

[Dima P.]

Thank you for your kind words Markus!

[vmtech123]

@vmtech123 sure - thats a main feature of tape - portability.

I'd say Price, Airgap, and resiliency are the top features

Being able to restore them in an alternate library is a huge added bonus though. I figured they would be pegged to a specific lib, but with unique barcodes it really shouldn't matter.

Now here is hoping I never have to

[mkretzer]

@vmtech123 In the beginning of tape not testing this was not really recommended as it was possible that one drives read/write heads are misaligned. This could lead to tapes beeing restorable on one device but not on another.

I am not really sure if someting like this is still possible but to prevent it we have a second tape library in our offsite tape storage location where we verify every tape thats beeing sent there.

[mkretzer]

@Dima P.
We are finally on V12 - how do we activate this?

[Dima P.]

Hello Markus,

Congratulations with upgrade! As promised - it's hidden behind the registry key. Here are two experimental keys we've added:

Code: Select all

The following experimental behavior mods can be used by creating the corresponding value under the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication key on the backup server.

Disable extra barcode scans — Create the TapeSuspendBarcodeValidation (DWORD, 1) value to make tape media import operations avoid doing extra barcode scans.
This can help accelerate the migration of tapes across libraries that are connected to the same backup server. Be sure you’re only using the unique barcodes across all connected tape libraries before enabling this option.

Please let us know how it works for your environment!

[mkretzer]

Any restart necessary (currently having copy bugs which makes restarting services hard)?

[Dima P.]

Yes. For the registry key to be recognized by the B&R you need to either restart entire backup server or restart all the services. Thanks!

[mkretzer]

Ok, will test wenn our other problem are solved! Thank you very much!

[stuartmacgreen]

With multiple libraries in a backup environment, of different LTO generations (LTO 5,6,7) to be able to restore amongst them all you still need consistent Block Size set amongst all the drives?

[Dima P.]

Hello Stuart,

They key removes additional barcode check but does not change the tape generation / block size logic. You must have the same block size and LTO generation must be compatible (tape should be supported by the drive). Thank you!

[mkretzer]

Case 07051538
We finally had the time to test the new registry setting (still on 12.0). At first all looks good. But as soon as we take the tapes from one library and put them in the other one the tapes show in both libraries and some slots do even show two tapes in one slot!

[Dima P.]

Passed to the QA team, thank you for the test and feedback Markus!