Tape bar codes / media ID's
Hello. I'm moving tape drives over to my new environment, and ran into a problem with media ID's not being unique. I dont think this is a problem with NB, more of a lack of understanding on my part. If anyone could shed some light on this, I would be forever grateful. (well, maybe not forever. )
Anywho, when I log into my Dell Powervault 132T admin gui, and run library inventory, I see bar codes of this nature :
000029L3
000003L3
000002L3....etc.
After adding my new robot, I try to run inventory, and it shows these:
Slot Tape Barcode
==== ==== ============
1 Yes 000029
2 No
3 Yes 000006
4 No
5 No
6 Yes 000003
7 Yes 000002
8 Yes 000001
9 Yes 000099
10 Yes 000013
______________________________________________________________
So if I try to just add these listed above, it tells me the ID's are not unique, and will not proceed. I've looked into the Media ID Generator under advanced options and tried toggling that - (my thinking is what I specify here will re-label / identify these tapes). This didn't work either. Also, in 'advanced robot inventory options', I have 'use barcode rules' checked.
So is there a way to accomplish what I would like to accomplish, without using all new labels? Is there a generic way to label these during an inventory to make them unique? This forum has been of great value so far, and I appreciate any assistance that can be provided.
Thanks!
Comments 7 Comments • Jump to latest comment
What are the barcodes of the tapes you are moving to this new environment? Will you be overwritting what was on these tapes before?
What are the ids of the tapes you have?
Without knowing this, it's difficult to suggest how you could configure your barcode rules.
Media ID Generation http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH38876
ravaroo,
Thanks for the quick response. My understanding is that what the admin gui shows in Dells powervault gui are the actual barcodes.
000029L3
000006L3
000003L3, and so on. Are these not the bar codes? If not, where is Dell getting them from, and why is NB listing these as generic labels? ->
Slot Tape Barcode
==== ==== ============
1 Yes 000029
2 No
3 Yes 000006
4 No
5 No
6 Yes 000003
7 Yes 000002
8 Yes 000001
____
As for the other question - I do not care about the images on these tapes. I backed up these clients to disk first, so my new environment has the most up to date backup. I just want to blow these tapes away and add them into my new environment...does that help at all? Or?
Yes these would be barcodes. NetBackup is probably configured with media id generation as 1:2:3:4:5:6
to pick the first 6 digits to be the media id's in NetBackup. If you say have a 2 tapes with a barcode of
000010L2 and 000010L3 you will get a conflict. You may have barcodes with exactly the same barcodes. Have you checked at the library level?
The "L3" is part of the barcode, but it is really a designator that is telling the library and/or application software that the tape is an LTO3 tape. What you want NetBackup to see is the first 6 digits of the barcode, the last 2 don't add anything.
Many libraries, including your Dell Powervault, has firmware that will typically strip off the last 2 digits - the tape designator - and just report the first 6 digits to the application software. You can change the behaviour of the firmware if you wish. NetBackup differentiates between "barcodes" and "labels". The first 6 digits are the media label as NetBackup would use. All 8 are the barcode. But your library appears to be only reporting 6 digits, due to the firmware.
Older libraries would typically report all 8 characters, and you would need to specify specific rules in your library inventory barcode rules to only use the specific characters you need. In your case, you should be good to go.
bbahnmiller,
Thanks for your reply - it always helps to understand things when someone can break it down for you.
So yeah, my NB is grabbing the characters it should be - I can see that, and your explanation helps break things down a bit. I'm with you so far. Here's my stupid question:
If I already have tapes in my library with Media ID's that match above, then what? Is there a way to change / edit the media ID of a tape that has YET to be originally inventoried (as this is a newly added tape drive to the master), or if not possible, can you edit the name / label of an existing tape in the library to clear up the duplicate names? Or does this have nothing to do with NB, and would be solved in looking at the manufacture's website, aka dell admin gui?
As I assume I'll run into this again (I'm moving campus tape drives to my new environment, and only on campus 4 of 10), I want to make sure I'm clear on things...
I don't care about the images on any of these tapes - as I noted above, I originally backed these clients up to disk first and foremost. If I can get the tape situation resolved, I will implement SLP / dedupe on this client.
If the media contains valid images (data) - you cannot change the media id.
You can however change the barcode - this can be one way around the issue.
If the media doesn't contain valid images, or you don't care - you can expire the tape and then relabel it to chabge the media id - you have to deselect the little tick box in the label media screen that tells NBU not to check the media id before relabing.
The cause is very simple - I think you already know this, so I'll keep it brief.
NBU knows media by media id, and for any NBU enviroment the media id has to be unique.
The barcode that NBU is told about is defined by the robot - even it the sticky label shows AA1234L5 the barcode given to NBU could be AA1234 which will cause a major issue if you have two tapes AA1234L5 and AA1234L6, use 8 characters of the barcode and the first 6 charcters for the media id. As you can see, NBU will think they are two different tapes (they are ...) as the barcodes are different, but the media id would try and be the same for both AA1234.
To see the barcode NBU is given, look in robtest - run robtest, select the library and run s s command. What is seen on the screen is sent from the library and passed to NBU - therefore if it is wrong it is changed by changing the config of the library.
Because tapes get move around to different environments, it is probably a good idea to always use the same media id gen rule on each server, and ensure each robot always displays the same barcode.
Very commonly, people drop the last two characters from the barcode using the library config, you therefore need to ensure that the first 6 charecters of the barcode (which is commonly the media id, though you could use the last six and drop the first two ...) is always unique, no matter what the last 2 charcters are eg, always use an increasing number ;
media id / barcode
000001 / 000001L4
000002 / 000002L4
000003 / 000003L5
000004 / 000004L5
So with this example, you can see we would avoid duplicate media ids, even if the last 2 disgits change due to new tape drives.
Another idea would be to use a unique first character for tape types ...
A00001 / A00001L4
A00002 / A00002L4
B00001 / B00001L5
B00002 / B00002L5
These are just ideas, are are not meant to reflect your exact issue, just trying to explain and give examples.
Martin
Easiest will be to config new robot to report full barcode (all 8 chars) in the same way as Powervault did.
You have never mentioned what make/model the new robot is? you should be able to find 'howto' in your robot user guide.
Else, use vmchange to change barcode for each media id:
vmchange -barcode <barcode> -m <media_id>
Please post output of one of your media-id's to ensure we are all 'on the same page'?
nbemmcmd -listmedia -mediaid <media-id>
Some forum posts with similar issues:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/media-id-not-unique-database-34-1
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/can-not-restore-old-media
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-create-script-using-vmchange-barcode-add-either-l4-or-l2-end-barcode-label
Supporting Storage Foundation and VCS on Unix and Windows as well as NetBackup on Unix and Windows
Handy NBU Links
Would you like to reply?
Login or Register to post your comment.