Mixing File-to-tape and backup-to-tape without wasting tapes?

[tehinternet]

Once a week we need to write full backups to tape and then move them off-site. This process includes both a file-to-tape job and a Veeam backups to tape job. We set the retention for ~3 weeks so a month later we can reuse these tapes once the data expires.

The file job is tiny compared to the Veeam backups job and it's eating up a tape when the data would fit on the other tapes used by the backups to tape job. We're trying to no longer burn an extra tape if we don't need to.

Both the file job and backup jobs are using the same media pool and the media pool is set to 'Do not create, always continue using current media set'. But after the jobs run I can clearly see the file-to-tape creates one media set on one tape and the veeam backups to tape create a second media set across multiple tapes.

We're using a tape library with 2 drives that can be used simultaneously if that matters. So when I check both backup jobs are running simultaneously. Then the file-to-tape completes while the backup to tape keeps running. Once the backup to tape job completes the tape, it keeps loading more as necessary.

Reading through the forums and answer always seems to be setting the 'Do not create, always continue using current media set' option, but that doesn't appear to be enough. What am I missing? Both jobs are set to eject tapes when they're complete. Is there anything there? I am open to changing eject settings if that needs to be done, but ideally all written tapes will no longer be in the drives once the job is complete so my tape mover off-site person can just easily grab them from the tape library's magazine. Does one job need to launch the other job to continue using the same media set?

What am I missing here to make this work?

Thanks.

[tehinternet]

In some more digging, my problem might be that both jobs are starting at the same time, each in separate drives. If drive 1 is using the media pool/creates it first, it sounds like drive 2 can't use the same media pool since it's in use and drive 2 needs to create its own media pool. This makes it sounds like I can't write to tape in parallel and I'd need to find some way so both jobs run at the same time. Is this idea correct? This seems to be what things were looking at in 2015 based on these forums, but I hope it's still not like that.

[Dima P.]

Hello tehinternet,

In some more digging, my problem might be that both jobs are starting at the same time, each in separate drives. If drive 1 is using the media pool/creates it first, it sounds like drive 2 can't use the same media pool since it's in use and drive 2 needs to create its own media pool. This makes it sounds like I can't write to tape in parallel and I'd need to find some way so both jobs run at the same time. Is this idea correct?

If you have two tape jobs each job will and they start at the same time, each job will use it's own drive and it's own tape (i.e. media set creation option will affect only the concurrent job runs). You can schedule one job to run after another and, with such setup, second job will continue the previously started tapes (media set settings should be set to Do not create, always continue in such case). Cheers!

[tehinternet]

Thank you Dima. That makes sense to get the two jobs using the same media set and I'll have to try that.
Unfortunately, that's not what I wanted to hear. It's a shame that with two tape drives in order to not waste tape I can only use one drive and as a result have longer times to write to tape now times now because I can't spread the same media set it across my multiple drive.

It seems Veeams tape functionality is lagging behind in terms of functionality what older competitive software can do. I think Veritas/Symantec/Whatever it is now's NetBackup sucks overall, but it offers lots of flexibility in writing tapes. It seems like Veeam is magical with VMs, but rudimentary with tape.

[Dima P.]

Mike,

Thanks for your feedback! It works that way because you have two separate job types (and file to tape job does not support parallel processing across multiple drives).

Is it possible to process the needed files via agent backup? If yes, you can add the resulting backup file to the backup to tape job and write all the data together within single backup to tape job. Cheers!