Data Protector 6.0 and D2D4112 vtl

[jose da silva]

Need advice from the experts on the following scenario:-

Cell Manager HPUX 11.23
Clients:- 2 Unix servers " SAN attached"
5 Windows servers " iSCSI attached"

Only full backups are permitted to run. Initially the full backups go through ok but when there is no more space available on the vtl media " no more empty media available " the media on the vtl is recycled " this is done only after D2D2T backup has been done".
What is the impact on the replication to the DR site?

[Henry A.C. Jans]

Hi Jose,

How did you configure your VTL ?? Generic Libary ?? Did you make small tapes (max 100 GB) ?? Firmware of your D2D device up to date ??

As far as I know tapes are kept in sync so if you recycle them on your source D2D they are recycled on the destination site too...

[jose da silva]

Hello Jasen

Thank you for your responce. I configured the D2D with 6 VTL . The first VTL was configured as a MSL library with 2 drives LTO4 and 14 media slots " LTO 4 ", this library is SAN attached and is used by the 2 Unix servers, one of the Unix serves is the Cell manager. The other 5 VTL libraries configured emulating MSL tape library with 1 drive LTO 3 and 8 media slots, these are accessed by the Windows clients via the iSCSI interface of the D2D4112. D2D has the latest firmware which was posted in Oct 2010. I have lately configured the DP to do object copies and then to recycle the media " source", somehow in some instances this is not happening. I have configured this week several object copies and will see the results tomorrow. Will post the results so that you can have a look. Please let me know if you need more information so that I can attached to this query tomorrow. Thanking you Jose.

[jose da silva]

Hello Jansen

After doing some research I have taken into consideration to recycle the media after a successfull copy and backup to media LTO tape. Also I have configured Data Protector backups to max two weeks protection. Please advise and let me know on your opinions. Jansen please see attachement.

Warm Regards,

Jose

[André Beck · Accepted solution]

Hi Jose,

I think you should reconsider your VTL emulation choices. Emulating an MSL makes sense only if your application thinks it must talk to exactly that kind of hardware IMHO. Given the specific way the VTLs deal with virtual media and virtual slots (them being essentially the same, so no more media available than slots), the best VTL is the one with the most slots. For that, the D2D boxes offer a generic library emulation that allows for 63 drives and 1024 slots. With the latter, you don't run into "all media full and none recycleable" situations that quickly.

For D2D2T, I prefer to run the backup at the expected data protection (8 weeks or such, maybe more) towards the VTL. Then, using a post-backup copy specification, copy that to tape (keeping data protection at the destination) and with this step, change the source (VTL) data protection back to something reasonable (say 2 or 3 weeks). This way, data is fully protected on the VTL as long as it is not yet on tape, as well as later on tape. When the tape copy exists, the VTL copy is still available for some limited time so quick restores are possible. The remaining protection used on VTL should be tuned so the D2D space usage reaches a steady state you're comfortable with, leaving enough headroom for some unexpected growth (maybe due to dedup breakdown) and D2D housekeeping.

BTW, I seem to remember that 6.0 had more limited choices in this department (regarding change of source object protection after a successful copy was made). You may need to run the original backup with the VTL interim protection then, and change to a new, longer destination protection on tape copy. The only real drawback would be VTL sessions for which the copy failed for some reason (and nobody noticed) expiring earlier then wanted. If you don't want this loophole for violating your data protection plan, upgrade to 6.11 is something to ponder.

HTH,

Andre.

[jose da silva]

Hi Andre

Thank you for your input and valuable solution to my problem, much appreciated. So what I will need to do is to get a DP license to be able to use more than 60 media slots and then reconfigure the D2D4112 with VTL that have a lot more slots as per your suggestion, also I will then reconfigure the backup protection levels.

Once again than you Andre. I will reassign point later afetr I find out how to do this.

Warm Regards,

Jose

[Stephan.]

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@jose da silva wrote:

Once again than you Andre. I will reassign point later afetr I find out how to do this.

Warm Regards,

Jose

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Hi,

check this thread regarding the new point system: Kudos - what, where, how, and why!

hth,

Stephan

[Zigoze]

Hi Jose,

If you have your VTL licensed with Advanced Backup do Disk License, you do not need an extra license for additional slots... that license is only needed for phisical tape libraries...

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@jose da silva wrote:

So what I will need to do is to get a DP license to be able to use more than 60 media slots and then reconfigure the D2D4112 with VTL

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