Renaming and re-sorting media slots

[howartp]

Hi,

We've got the IBM TS3100 with 24 slots in it, some of which are cleaning slots so hidden from Veeam.

At present, Veeam shows the slots as 4096-4119 - is it possible to rename this as slots 1-19 which ties in with the physical cartridges?

Also, when sorting columns, you sort the 'Name' column alphabetically instead of numerically. Therefore I have the following tape order:

1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 21, 23, 23, 24, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Could this be sorted correctly so I get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11...

Cheers,

Peter

[Dima P.]

Hello Peter,
Thank you for the provided feedback - it is highly appreciated!

Currently we have "media centric" user interface, so unfortunately it is impossible to rename the tape library slot in Veeam B&R console, however we are planning to add the "Slot" view to the interface, so all slots could be managed in one place. As a part of this view renaming the slot functionality would be also available.

Regarding the sorting issue: could you please clarify did sorting on the original names (which I suppose were the barcode numbers - as your library has built in barcode reader) worked correctly?

[veremin]

As a potential workaround, I can propose you to add one “0” to the 2-digit names of tape media and two “0” to the 1-digit names. After that, even alphabetic sorting should work as expected.

Below there is an automatic way how this task can be achieved (PS):

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
foreach ($TapeMedia in Get-VBRTapeMedium)
{
if ($TapeMedia.name.Length -eq "2")
{
  $Tapemedia.name = "0" + $TapeMedia.Name
}
else{$Tapemedia.name = "00" + $TapeMedia.Name}
}

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[veremin]

Additionally, may I ask you to upload corresponding logs somewhere, since we’d like to analyze them and potentially come up with a bit different way how sorting can be implemented in the next versions? Thanks.

[howartp]

Hello Peter,
Currently we have "media centric" user interface, so unfortunately it is impossible to rename the tape library slot in Veeam B&R console, however we are planning to add the "Slot" view to the interface, so all slots could be managed in one place. As a part of this view renaming the slot functionality would be also available.

Hi Dimitry,

That's great. I presume you are currently enumerating the media, and each mediaitem has a number of properties including which slot it is in, and this slot is given as the high number (eg 4096 in my case)? So when you implement the slot-view, you will enumerate the slots, which will return 4096-4119 - but you will then be able to create a lookup table within your software so wherever else in the software a slot or media item says it is in 'slot 4096' you will display 'slot 1' etc?

Hello Peter,
Regarding the sorting issue: could you please clarify did sorting on the original names (which I suppose were the barcode numbers - as your library has built in barcode reader) worked correctly?

I've never used barcodes on our tapes. The tape names displayed ('Tape 1') are simply what Veeam has called the tapes. The names of the tapes in BackupExec which we used previously are something like 'Fri_Week1' so this is why I presume Veeam has labelled the tapes?

As a potential workaround, I can propose you to add one “0” to the 2-digit names of tape media and two “0” to the 1-digit names. After that, even alphabetic sorting should work as expected.

Yeah, this is the approach I take when sorting numbers as text in other situations, so I'll probably do this.

Additionally, may I ask you to upload corresponding logs somewhere, since we’d like to analyze them and potentially come up with a bit different way how sorting can be implemented in the next versions? Thanks.

Will do.

[Dima P.]

Peter,
Thank you for the heads up!

That's great. I presume you are currently enumerating the media, and each mediaitem has a number of properties including which slot it is in, and this slot is given as the high number (eg 4096 in my case)? So when you implement the slot-view, you will enumerate the slots, which will return 4096-4119 - but you will then be able to create a lookup table within your software so wherever else in the software a slot or media item says it is in 'slot 4096' you will display 'slot 1' etc?

Yes currently we display only logic based view - and as an addition to "slot view" we could also display the physical slot number, or combination of them.

I've never used barcodes on our tapes. The tape names displayed ('Tape 1') are simply what Veeam has called the tapes.

Exactly, we implemented the blind labeling in the Tape feature, however please note that sorting for the customized names (as well as default labels) is alphabetical.

v.Eremin wrote:
Additionally, may I ask you to upload corresponding logs somewhere, since we’d like to analyze them and potentially come up with a bit different way how sorting can be implemented in the next versions? Thanks.

Will do.

Just a quick note - you could find Veeam service logs under Event Viewer > Application and Service Logs.

Thank you in advance!

[cbrasga]

I'm also experiencing the Slot 4096 through Slot 4119 names (for slots 1 - 24) in our tape library. Our backup hardware is a Dell TL2000 with LTO-5 drive using Dell's latest drivers.
Along with renaming the slots, please allow for renaming the drives as well. The LTO-5 Drive currently shows as "Drive 256", would prefer to name it "Drive 1" or "Tape Drive".

Thanks.

[howartp]

Hi Dimitry,

Any progress on this?

Peter

[Dima P.]

Peter,
Unfortunately, it was put on hold: there were only several requests on the “slot view” and we decided to focus on the top requested tape enhancements first. So it could be included into product after the next major release. Thank you.

[howartp]

That's a shame.

I know I haven't seen many requests for 'slot view' (to be honest, I didn't ask for slot view either), but there have been quite a few 'how do I rename the slots or drives' which is a much simpler task for you to implement without committing development time to the slow view you and your colleagues have talked about.

I know you haven't released details of v8 yet, but is there a rough timeframe for it? Q2, Q3, Q4, next year?

If it's a long way off, I would still like to see renaming of slots and drives without developing the slot view.

Peter

[howartp]

A sample function which would take less than 10 minutes to implement (excluding testing):

I've typed it for Drives because the code isn't easy to read with $'s and S's next to each other, but it's more suited to enumerating slots than drives.

Code: Select all

enumerateDrives($libraryID)
{
$driveList[] = $libraryID.getDrivesBySlotNo();

REM (Sort the list numerically)
$driveList = sort($driveList);

REM (Do I want my drives and slots to begin at zero or one)
$baseID = 1;

REM (Define a counter)
$i = 0;

foreach ($driveID in $driveList[])
{
 $driveID.description = "Drive" . $baseID + $i;
 $i++;
}

$whateverYourCurrentDriveArrayIsCalled = $driveList[];

Peter

[Dima P.]

Thank you Peter!
I call it "slot view" but in fact it is a complex feature including slot operations, slot reservation and so on. v8 will be released later this year, but I can’t really say when.

[Neugart]

Hello, I found this post in the Internet and since about 2 weeks we've got the same Problem. We've got a new Dell Server with a Tape Library TL2000 and we've got the Veeam Version 8 with Patch 1. In the Software I see the slots from 4096 to 4118 instead of 1 to 23. Iss the now a possibility to switch the view?

[Dima P.]

Hello Neugart and welcome to the community!
Unfortunately, its by design: we rely on the information received from the library on a hardware level. Once we get back to the slot request, we will try to address this issue with the dev team. Thank you for the heads up!

[Max Dembo]

Hello,
I have a Veeam Backup Server v8.0 which I added a virtual machine that act as a tape server, it has a Dell TL2000 iSCSI tape connected.
The drive has been correctly recognized but the slots numbers are strange:
Not 1,2,3 and so on but 411,4112,4113 etc.
I installed the latest Windows driver available.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

[Shestakov]

Hello Max,
It`s a known situation for TL2000. Dell made it by design.
Thanks.

[veremin]

Also, in version 9 we're going to introduce logic preventing that from happening. So, numeration would be provided in convenient way (1,2, etc.). Thanks.

[Max Dembo]

OK, Thanks.

[Shestakov]

You are welcome, Max!
Once you have a question, don`t hesitate asking!