see the content of a tape in V12

[ReggieNoble]

First i want to say congrats for a successful V12 launch.
I have one question to tape backup. I use tape jobs (only: "Backups to Tape" type with backup job as source) for copy my daily VM Backups with a GFS Media set on tapes.
In V11 i could easily see what is on the tapes by check the properties of the tape. Under the tab "Files" i can see every VBK or VIB file that is on the tape.

V11 example:


In V12 i can not see this anymore, i only have the tab "Jobs" and only get shown the name of the backupserver.

V12 example:


It is not a big deal but it would help if i can easily see what data is on the tape, before taking the weekly or monthly media out of the library.
Is there any chance to get the content of the tape shown again in the properties view of the tape?

Thanks in advance.

[Dima P.]

Hello Stefan,

Thank you for the congratulations and for your feedback! There were multiple performance reasons why we have to remove the file tree from the tape properties. Would it help if we show the actual job runs (or restore points in the tape properties) to highlight when such tape was used?

[ReggieNoble]

Hello Dima,

thank you for your answer.
I am not so sure about, but i think that a place for a check what files are on the tape would be needed.
Perhaps a catalog of tapes and the files on it can be integrated somewhere in the enterprise manager, i don’t know.
I can understand that the performance should not be impacted and honestly performance is one main point why i am addicted with veeam in comparison to other backup software vendors.

Let’s wait and see what others say, maybe i was the only one who use the tape property tab for a quick double check to see what is on the tape.
Thanks.

[Dima P.]

Understood, thank you! It feels more accurate to say in the properties 'this tape contains data from job run X' in the tape properties. Whenever it comes to an investigation of specific file / folder - you can go to File catalog, right click the file or folder properties and get the exact list of tapes where this object can be found (works today in v12 ).

[Samba222]

Omg, nooo - i cant understand why this feature was removed. Of course we need it! Is there anything in the "Whats New" Document that i read over? This could be a show stopper for upgrade - thx for this post.
And no, the actual Job is not enough! We are working with tapes with expiration until 5 years - Jobs are comming and going, i want to see which files are on tape!
... sorry but this could only be programmed by someone who does not work with tape

[ReggieNoble]

The more and more i think about this i have to agree with Samba222. i need this back in some way or another.

[Dima P.]

Thank you for the feedback!

We are working with tapes with expiration until 5 years - Jobs are comming and going, i want to see which files are on tape!

Can you please describe how/why you use it step by step to understand your use case better?

[Samba222]

We do quarterly backups, VeaamZIPs and so on for 5 years on tape. When i'm looking for a specific date of tape backup, i search through create or expire dates and have a look into the tape files. Only the Job or Server is not enough, i wanna see which part (files), are on this tape - especially when tape jobs are big over 10 tapes or more. What when a tape has a r/w error? Which files are affected? This specific tape i can import/export, restore from, given/get from customer and so on. There are many, many use-cases...
Which sense makes the new V11 feature "Restore Content" (Restore whole tape) when i cant see the files on tape? Sorry but that honestly annoys me when functions are simply removed without saying anything.
And sorry, that annoys me also because now nothing will happen for a very long time, instead I'm sure workarounds will be presented right away ...

[Dima P.]

Ronald,

Thank you! Getting the information from the db is a slow process for a complex folder structures, possibly we can bring this information back but in a form of report (i.e. files on tape)?

[Samba222]

Hmm, i'm dealing with up to 1500 tapes, ok not a global player but with this number i don't have problems with any tape db-querys (dedicated ms-sql-std on bs).
When i click "report" on a backup job then i have a problem with "This operation is taking longer than expected"... Should the future "files on tape" report also ends up in such a long query its useless, when its a short and sweet query in form of a "report" with all files and paths it would be fine.
But what would be the difference? you could also implement a "mini" report in the tab "files" on tape properties.

[APL_Ian]

On V11, you could open the properties of a tape and see what files were on the tape. This appears to have gone in V12.

Would it be posible to add a column under Files > Tape > [Backup] > [Structure]: To show the name of the tape the backed up file is on.

If you view the properties of the backup file, under restore points, it shows the tape it is on. Could this "location" also be shown under files view.

[Mildur]

Hello Ian

Welcome to the forum.
I moved your request to a similar topic.
Please see the previous answer of my colleague Dima for the reason why it was removed.

The difficulty in your request would be to decide which tape you want to have shown in the column. With monthly full tape copies, you will have maybe 12 different tapes where this files are written too.

Best,
Fabian

[APL_Ian]

Thanks Fabian.

From my point of view, the oldest tape the file is on would be preferred to be shown. I know from there how many tapes its on as it's the documentation.

But.. It was a nice feature, but am not going to lose sleep over it. The DB behind Veeam can be interrogated to get pretty much all I want, so if it becomes a real issue, i'll write a report and schedule it for quiet times on the server.

[Gostev]

Dima is on a well-deserved vacation and he will update when he comes back, however I can say with high probability that this functionality was removed or postponed as a part of the new, scalable File-to-Tape backup engine effort in V12. The truth is, these UI views are extremely taxing on the configuration database when it comes to hundreds of millions of files and take forever to generate while straining the configuration database, which in turn may result in other backup and recovery tasks timing out or failing. They worked before when you could backup a few millions of files per backup server at best, however the scalability goal for the new file backup engine was 1000 times of that number.

I like a suggestion of having this as a report (versus a real-time view) as then the code can "take time" to build one without putting much strain on the configuration database.

[roguegeek]

Omg, nooo - i cant understand why this feature was removed. Of course we need it! Is there anything in the "Whats New" Document that i read over? This could be a show stopper for upgrade - thx for this post.
And no, the actual Job is not enough! We are working with tapes with expiration until 5 years - Jobs are comming and going, i want to see which files are on tape!
... sorry but this could only be programmed by someone who does not work with tape

Agreed this total sucks. Why the hell would you not have provided an alternative way to see what is on the tapes? Please bring this feature back!

[Regnor]

The possibility to check the content of the tapes is something we and our customers often use. Sometimes you need to check on which tapes certain VMs have been written to. Also it helps to understand the tape usage in case of capacity or retention issues.

But I would say a tape report or overview would be even better, like the one in Veeam ONE; Backups on Tape. This is something we often did get requests for.

[vmtech123]

I use this all the time...

Will everything still show up under Files/Tape ?

This is too bad, for things I Veeam zip to a pool, sometimes it's easier to just look at the tape. my servers being 30-50TB leaves 1 item on the tape so the "overhead" of that search is next to nothing.

Obviously on a file to tape you could have millions of files which would be painful.....

[jalal.attar]

Dear Sir,
Content Files and Folders of a Tape is missing in V12. please kindly come back this great feature.
I know, in File menu we can locate where is our files and folder. but as a Tape, it was wonderful feature that shows me the content files and folders.

[Mildur]

Hello Jalar

I moved your question to this existing topic.
Please see the previous answers above from my colleagues.

Best,
Fabian

[Ariete_]

Upgraded today to v12, I found that feature disappeared. I think that remove a feature without saying anything to anyone is disrespectful for customers. At the moment the way to know how files are in tape is crazy, maybe the developers don't used tapes never in them lives.

[milan0780]

Hello Team,
Is there any alternative way to check the file content of tape in Veeam Version 12.

[sfaits]

I to was using that feature but there is another option is you are comfortable with using SQL queries.
Awhile back a forum user named winnt wrote a wonderful SQL query to pull the data from database.
Might need some modifications for specific use cases.
Hope it helps.

Here is the URL to the forum post.
powershell-f26/get-tape-content-via-pow ... 42-60.html

[wilb]

I agree that this feature should return in some form. We used it often.

[sdelacruz]

One of the features I used almost on a daily basis was to explore the content of the tape jobs and make sure all veeam files existed before ejecting the tape. I also would love to have the option back or at least have another way to check content.

[bct44]

This can also be used to check data without making twisted sql queries to see the content by an operator when a tape is broken. Unfortunately it happens more than we would like

[ChriFue]

I miss the "old feature" too.
To see which files are on which tapes in the old V11 style.
Most of my customers say "hey, v12 upgrade went grate, but where is the file on tape view?"
so i vote for this old feature

[Gostev]

No worries guys, it is clear this is a big indeed for you all and I already made sure devs realize it is the top priority to get this back. @Egor Yakovlev please control the progress.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Already discussed with R&D and working on resolution as we are evaluating different approaches to get this information back.
Due to the complexity of this view we can't deliver it as a patch, so please bear with current state until the next minor release.
/Thanks

[sfaits]

Thank you Gostev and Egor.

[TWSS]

Due to a security incident we have started tape backup again.
We also need this proberties info from the tape, we label the tape with the backup jobs from the proberties info.
This way we at least know immediately which backup jobs were stored on the tape.

It's a pity that you can't print out the properties at the same time. Ideally in a format that can be enclosed with the tape.
At the moment, we take a screenshot of the proberties and attach it to the tape.