Is it possible to create a storage policy to backup data to tape library in weekly basis with manual barcode/media labels?

@RSJ , you can have a copy go to tape, then have the tape marked full after the job completes (I’m assuming aux Copy here), though guaranteeing each named tape is used on a given week becomes a bit tough (i.e. Week 1’s tape is used on week 1, not week 2, etc.)  Ensuring the jobs age in time becomes another problem to contend with as well.

If I may ask, is there a need for tapes to be sued as named?  Commvault tracks the tape barcodes for you, so there’s no need to remember which tape is which.  Vault Tracker also helps with knowing which tapes to send offsite and which ones to recall (and when).  As long as there are tapes in the library, CV handles everything for you.

I recall getting asked this when I was an engineer and the person was generally looking to replicate a legacy product based on their limitations, but we don’t have to do anything like that.  Just ensure you have tapes to use and the Commserve and Media Agent take care of everything.

Is there a reason you need to have this configuration, or is this something you thought was necessary?

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your quick reply.

Yes, it is an aux copy and we use 6.25TB tapes.

We have an existing software, an old one and using tape drive only (1 tape only), we manually change the tape with labeled week1, week2, etc. rotating schedule of 5 sets of tape week1-week5.

We just started using commvault and we are using a tape library (8tapes).

My manager wants this kind of scenario to be implemented in commvault on tape library but it seems now impossible because we don’t use tape barcodes, all are blind tapes.

I’ve attached a file that shows something like that scenario.

Thanks

Hi,

From what I understand, with the previous tool you performed backup to tapes, and now you would perform backup to disk and then auxcopy them to tapes. Correct ?

You have a tape library without barcode support, with a single drive, and would each week insert a tape set of many tapes to replace the tape set from past week ?

Or would it be only 1 tape for the whole week ?

Next questions would be how often you have your backups performed, to schedule the auxcopy to tape, but let’s first see your replies on that part. 

Hi Laurent,

Yes and we are now doing in commvault backup to disk then to tape.

“ You have a tape library without barcode support, with a single drive, - Yes. and would each week insert a tape set of many tapes to replace the tape set from past week ?  Or would it be only 1 tape for the whole week ? “ 1 tape for the whole week. Assuming we have 5 tapes inserted in tape library, and assigned those tapes in 1 scratch pool group name (GN-SP100), we want tape1 for week1, then tape2 for week2….up to tape5 for week5, we don’t need to insert a tape on weekly basis, then when week5 is completed it will go back to tape1 for week1 and append the data to backup for week1 in tape1, the same process for tape2-week2...we will insert new tape when it reach around 70-80% of its capacity. I don’t know if this is possible in commvault but what the commvault reseller guys told us that it is possible.

Our backup schedule is everyday (late midnight) to disk, retention of 90 days, it is a full dumpbased database backup, then to tape with infinite retention.

Wow, infinite retention to tape. Then this means that when tapes are full, you will replace them with new blank ones, and this would last forever. In many months/years, you would have a lot of tapes outside the library locked forever.. 

So if in a week you copied let’s say 5TB on the week1 tape, that is 6TB capacity, 4 weeks later, you would need to replace that week1 tape with a blank tape. 

Is this really expected ?

The most important thing to know is what you expect from those tapes versus the disk copy : longer retention, or cryptolocker protection, or DR from up to 7 days ?

Hi Laurent,

It’s true that we set infinite retention to tape, as of now I do not know what is the management future plan for those data. yes we need to replace when tapes are full. In our old backup software using the single tape drive, we keep 7 years of data for 1 our clients.

So if in a week you copied let’s say 5TB on the week1 tape, that is 6TB capacity, 4 weeks later, you would need to replace that week1 tape with a blank tape. 

Is this really expected ? Absolutely will do this way, but we haven’t reach to that size of data that makes tape almost full, we do not even reach 1TB as yet.

So is it possible to implement this kind of scenario? tape1-week1, tape2-week2 and so on..?

Thanks.

@RSJ following up to see if we’ve answered your question (collectively) 

Feel free to mark the most helpful reply as Best Answer.

We had been working on different project. I did not complete this setup yet.

@RSJ , appreciate the follow up!  If you find this doesn’t work for you, just update the thread and we can keep investigating.

Thanks!