v7 - Eject Tape option is greyed out

[Peter_Riederer]

Hi there,

we currently installed the new Veeam V7 (7.0.0.690) on a Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Server. The Server (Dell T320) has an IBM Ultrium 6 HH Tape Drive (LTO-6 Internal Tape Drive with Controller) with Firmware D2D3 and Driver IBMTape.x64_w08_6233_WHQL_Cert installed. Inventoring tapes works fine, but i cannot eject them. The button for eject Tape is greyed out. If i do a manual eject by pressing the eject-button on the tape drive, the tape will be removed. But the Device still shows a loaded tape. If i enter the next tape and do an inventory scan, i first get an error that the tape was removed manually and the inventory job is canceld, but when i start a second inventory job the tape will be scanned.

Is there an option to activate the eject function, or is there a workaround for ejecting the tape via Veeam Backup & Replication Software?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Regards

Peter

[veremin]

Hi, Peter.

Please be aware that the procedure called “Eject tape” doesn’t pull out a given medium from a library but rather places it into a slot. By design, this functionality doesn’t exist in case of standalone drives and neither does automatic tape detection.

So, the only option you have is to remove a tape manually.

Thanks.

[Peter_Riederer]

Hi,
thanks for your quick reply. So standalone Drives are (currently?) not supported and i have to eject the tapes every time manually by pressing the eject button on the tape drive? And ejecting tapes is only supported with Autoloaders / Mediachangers? Sorry, but this cant be an option!

Is a solution/ compatibilty for Standalone Drives coming soon? Cause ejecting a tape manually or after a backup job has finished is a standard option / feature in every other backup software.
Due to this missiong feature the tape support is useless for us and our customers, if i have to do all manually.

BTW: This error appears after i started a file backup job to tape with activated eject option:
19.08.2013 15:47:31 :: Faield to eject tape Error: Automated library not found (id: 47a72775-be4e-4485-b2f3-831e563a1a39).

Thanks.

[Gostev]

the tape support is useless for us and our customers, if i have to do all manually

Hi Peter, can you please clarify for my understanding - considering that tape operator needs to be physically present next to the tape drive anyway (in order to manually take the tape medium, and insert the next one), what is the problem of pressing the eject button while you are there anyway? Thanks!

[veremin]

Assuming that there is a way to instruct (via some utility) given tape drive to eject tape media, it might be worth creating a scheduled task within which the tape job will be executed and required instructions (to eject tape media) will be passed to the drive afterwards, once the job is finished.

Thanks.

[Peter_Riederer]

Hello Gostev,

Normally an ejected tape, was an indicator to our customers backup was successful. And a lot of our customers only have some normal office staff, who are changing the tapes without any access to the GUI.

By pressing the eject button veeam doesn't know the tape isn't anymore in the drive, hence the next backup job will fail I think. And If I set up a scheduled inventory scan (if this will be possible of course) before the next backup job starts, it will also terminates cause v7 says the tape is manually removed, as I already noticed today after inventoring the new tapes.

Why isnt it possible to get the eject function working with standalone drives, like backup exec e.g. does?

Thx Peter

[Gostev]

And a lot of our customers only have some normal office staff, who are changing the tapes without any access to the GUI.

Are you saying most standalone drives do not have a physical eject button on the device itself?

By pressing the eject button veeam doesn't know the tape isn't anymore in the drive, hence the next backup job will fail I think.

Well, the next backup job will fail in almost every situation but one: if the tape drive has a free tape inserted... and it does not matter if the tape was ejected manually or via the software.

Why isnt it possible to get the eject function working with standalone drives, like backup exec e.g. does?

I guess we just assumed that customers will want to manage standalone drives manually, including manual eject. Otherwise, no problems adding this feature for any tape drive that supports this command.

[davidhodges86]

In exactly the same boat - a lot of our customers don't ever log on to the server but just change the tape when it pops out. To them if the tape hasn't ejected they have no way of knowing if the backup ran or not so call us.

[veremin]

As far as I’m concerned, there is free tool called IBM Tape Diagnostic Tool (ITDT) that provides multiple functional capabilities that simplify the task of maintaining IBM tape products. In the Standard Edition (ITDT-SE) it is a command line version that is available for most major platforms (Windows, AIX, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Mac OS X, I5/OS).

Among other commands accepted by this utility, there is one named “Unload” that can be passed to a tape drive, once the tape job is finished. So, as mentioned earlier, you can write and schedule a simple script that will be responsible for starting a given tape job ("Get-VBRTapeJob, Start-VBRJob") and instructing a tape drive to unload a tape ("\itdt.exe unload").

Thanks.

[Gostev]

Thanks all, I will discuss with the devs if eject can be enabled for standalone drives.

[Peter_Riederer]

Thank you very much !

ITDT Tool is installed, but hardware is already delivered to customer. If i have time tomorrow i will try this option as a workaround.

BTW:
What is the difference ejecting a tape from a tape library and a standalone drive? the internal drives in the library are the same as the standalone drives are. And librarys have an eject button/option on the front panel too
The Only difference is the driver in my opinion (media changer driver). you either should be able to install the library as a single drive - is then the eject function working, or is it the same if you are using a single drive?

[marksmithuk]

We are in the same boat here as well. We use the fact that the tape has ejected to show the end users that the job has completed and they are safe to remove the tape. I know email notification could be used but people dont like change do they!

We also dont set retention policies on the tapes and if the tape stays in the drive it can get appended to and the tape runs out of space. If there is a way for the tape to be able to be ejected via the software or via a PS cmdlet that would be perfect.

Hopefully you guys can come up with a fix for this one.

[sf4692]

same Problem here, would really appreciate this Feature that the tape is automatically ejected and software realizes the tapedrive is empty then.

[cgrebing]

We have the same situation here with most of our customers with standalone tape drive. They don't log in to the server to see if the backup job finished.
they only look if the tape has ejected otherwise they call us to look if there is something wrong with the backup.

[marksmithuk]

I like the idea of the work around for the ITDT, but I'm not having much luck. I think I need to run something like ITDT unload but I dont know how to reference the drive itself. Has anyone had any experience with this tool?

Here is what I get when i scan for devices

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C:\ITDT>itdt scan
Scanning SCSI Bus ...
#0 \\.\scsi4: - [ULTRIUM-HH5]-[A9Q2] S/N:1068004268 H4-B0-T3-L0
#1 \\.\scsi4: - [ULTRIUM-HH5]-[B6W1] S/N:1068048375 H4-B0-T4-L0

As far as I’m concerned, there is free tool called IBM Tape Diagnostic Tool (ITDT) that provides multiple functional capabilities that simplify the task of maintaining IBM tape products. In the Standard Edition (ITDT-SE) it is a command line version that is available for most major platforms (Windows, AIX, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Mac OS X, I5/OS).

If no one has any experience I will try to talk to the support guys for the tape drive to see if they can help

[Dima P.]

Hello all, currently we have Eject media option disabled for standalone drives. However, we will research the possibility of providing the support of this option for standalone drives based on the provided feedback. Thank you!

[marksmithuk]

I have managed to find a piece of software (reccomended by Dell) that kind of does the job. It is called "rwrite", if you download the utility and run the following command

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C:\rWrite>mt.exe eject Tape1

it ejects the tape as expected but only when all Veeam services are stopped unfortunatly so half way there. I am going to do some more testing to see if I can get it working as expected.

[marksmithuk]

Okay, I think there must have been something locked elsewhere as it seems to be working now as long as run as an admin. The code I have is in powershell and is:

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#load module for Veeam
asnp VeeamPSSnapin

#Get Inventory of left drive within Veeam
$Drive1 = Get-VBRTapeDrive | Where {$_.deviceid -eq "f5869f4a-acc9-4446-9d03-02cfe0ef28b8"}
$Drive1 | Start-VBRTapeInventory 

#start of code to eject tapes with rWrite software 

#change directory
cd C:\rWrite

#inventory the drives themselves, not through Veeam
.\mt.exe load Tape0

#eject the drives themselves, not through Veeam
.\mt.exe eject Tape0

#back to veam to inventory again

#Get Inventory of left drive within Veeam
$Drive1 = Get-VBRTapeDrive | Where {$_.deviceid -eq "f5869f4a-acc9-4446-9d03-02cfe0ef28b8"}
$Drive1 | Start-VBRTapeInventory 

I am no great coder so who knows if this is any good or not. I have two drives so this is to eject one of them. The only thing is I cannot see anywhere in the backup to tape job to say run X after the job completes unlike in the normal backup job, am I missing anything?

Cheers
Mark

[sbaumgartner]

Could u post me pleas the link of that tool ? Thank you

[marksmithuk]

They sent me the link direct for me to get everything from their servers. I have asked if they can direct me to a public page to download it.

I have uploaded the files that they gave me https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing which you can look at. I take no responsability for the files stored there, use them at your own risk

[veremin]

Has anyone had any experience with this tool?

Based on the corresponding IBM User Guide, scripting has been enabled since 4.0 release of ITDT utility. As far as I can understand, the syntax should be as following:

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itdt -f filename [Open Mode] Subcommand [Subcommand ...]

Note: "filename" should be a device special file for the drive/changer or the device address (host bus target lun), open mode - 1 (read/write) and subcommand - unload (the subcommand that rewinds and unloads the tape media).

I’ve to admit that my IBM-related knowledge leaves much to be desired, so, it’s quite possible that syntax has to be corrected slightly. Thanks.

[marksmithuk]

yea that is where i struggled with it. I asked Dell to help out with it as they sell their drives but they werent much use. I have set up some schedulded tasks to do a daily inventory and also to eject the tape which will hopefully do the job but we will see what tonight has in hold.

The problem is that I have had to set up as a scheduled task to run at a specific time as I can't see a way for the tape backup job to initial the job (unlike a VM backup job where you can).

Please remember my coding skills are very very basic! Here is what i've got for the daily inventory though

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$TapeID1="f5869f4a-acc9-4446-9d03-02cfe0ef28b8"
$TapeID2="dda137c0-c6f3-4fb4-ac4f-517d53f2bc56"

#load module for Veeam
asnp VeeamPSSnapin

#Check to see if the left drive is in use and collect the information from it
$VBRDrive1 = Get-VBRTapeDrive | Where {$_.deviceid -eq $TapeID1 -and $_.IsLocked -like "False"}
$VBRDrive2 = Get-VBRTapeDrive | Where {$_.deviceid -eq $TapeID2 -and $_.IsLocked -like "False"}

#Run Invnetory
$VBRDrive1 | Start-VBRTapeInventory 
$VBRDrive2 | Start-VBRTapeInventory 

And here is what I have for the eject

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$TapeNumber="Tape0"
$TapeID="f5869f4a-acc9-4446-9d03-02cfe0ef28b8"

#load module for Veeam
asnp VeeamPSSnapin

#Check to see if the left drive is in use and collect the information from it
$VBRDrive1 = Get-VBRTapeDrive | Where {$_.deviceid -eq $TapeID}
$DellDrive1 = Get-VBRTapeDrive | Where {$_.deviceid -eq $TapeID -and $_.IsLocked -like "True"}
#Veeam Inventory for the drives
$VBRDrive1 | Start-VBRTapeInventory 

#Check if drive is in use
if ($DellDrive1 -eq $Null)  {$MTDrive = $TapeNumber} else {$MTDrive = "Tape-1"} #give false value if it is in use

#change directory
cd C:\rWrite

#inventory the drives themselves, not through Veeam
.\mt.exe load $MTDrive

#eject the drives themselves, not through Veeam
.\mt.exe eject $MTDrive

#back to veam to inventory again

#Get Inventory of left drive within Veeam
$VBRDrive1 | Start-VBRTapeInventory 

Everything seems to be working as I wanted (other than it automatically running after the tape backup has finished) but we will see what happens tonight!

[veremin]

I can't see a way for the tape backup job to initial the job (unlike a VM backup job where you can).

You can leave a given tape job without any schedule and initiate its start with the following command, instead:

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Get-VBRTapeJob –name “Name of your Tape Job” | Start-VBRJob

Thanks.

[marksmithuk]

That was the only way I could think of doing it as well but I didnt want to push much more out of the console really. I dont mind having the eject / inventories outside of it for now until it is able to be pulled in, but I would rather keep the scheduling of the jobs themselves inside the console itself really.

[veremin]

Yep, makes sense. I was just trying to provide you with another possible option. Thanks.

[sbbots]

We use the fact that the tape has ejected to show the end users that the job has completed and they are safe to remove the tape.

Same here. At a remote site I have a few chosen users who swap tapes for me. If the tape is still in the drive they assume the job is still running, if it is ejected then they know it is done.

So I agree, there should be an option to eject tapes after job completion on stand-alone drives.

[Peter_Riederer]

Just a small experience from todays customer visit:

- Tape for Monday Backup was loaded, as shown in Tapedrive in Veeam B&R
- actually loaded was tape for Wednesday backup
- Wednesday tape backup was shown successful, but nothing was transfered to tape, either the tape was ejected from the drive (Eject option in Backup was not selected)

wednesday tape is a member of Media Pool Nieberler$Tag which is selected for incremental backups



Today i entered the Thursdays Tape and did an inventory scan before, Veeam now knows the right tape for today.
will check tomorrow if backup and transfer was successfull.

[marksmithuk]

Mine was doing the same in a standard drive (no libary / barcodes), so i assumed it wasnt able to record it correctly. I have scraped the media labling etc for now.

[PatrickL]

I had this problem too.

21/08/2013 15:33:36 :: 0 directories and 0 files backed up successfully

The issue was for me that i was using the BackupExec driver for the tape drive.
I removed it and installed the default Microsoft one.
This solved the problem for me.

The strange thing is that Veeam should give an error, but does not.
I was also unable to do a manual tape inventory.

[Peter_Riederer]

i had the same problem with the original ibm driver, as in my first post mentioned.
with the backup exec driver, the trive was not shown in veeam.