I have been running into backups that error out because they can't use the tape, when I get the tape out I find the write protect

notch is closed.  I double check all my tapes to make sure they are not locked out, is the newer NBU robot libraries capable of

locking a tape because it has an issue or something?

I am almost certain it was not locked when I put it in the machine.

Recently, I replied to a question regarding OpsCenter reporting.  I find OpsCenter rather intuitive and easy to use, but I've dealt with a lot of similar stuff for several years, so I can understand how someone new to it might need a short guide/tour.  I'm going to post a simple 'how-to' in creating simple alerting similar to output of the Activity Monitor (or bpdbjobs).

Within OpsCenter, the Report Template I get the most out of is the "Tabular Backup Report."  This report gives me a lot of fields and a lot of fields to filter by.  To get to this report, you can click on:

Reports (Tab) -> Report Templates -> Backup -> Job Browser -> Tabular Backup Report.

The Tabular Backup Report gives the following columns: Client Name, Job Duration (sec), Job End Time, Expiration Time, Job File Count, Throughput (in KB/s), Job Primary ID, Job Secondary ID, Schedule/Level Type, Master Server, Media Server, Policy Name...

Problem:

One of the challenges of administrators is gathering statistics and notifications.  Symantec provides a lot of great resources to help manage events and notifications.  I'm able to set up traps from my OpsCenter server to go to my Veritas Operations Manager, where I can create custom notifications for certain events.  In Command Central, I can also create notifications.  Additionally, I can also create notifications for the same system services that are tied in with Command Central within VOM.  Within VOM, I can create notifcations and send notices to other Symantec systems to handle those.  It seems, though, that VOM is my centralized server for handling events.

But I don't just have my Symantec services; I also have an F5 Big-IP load balancer, Solaris systems with ASR and consoles that complain about hardware.  With all these events, there has to be a way to handle notifications so that I don't have to log...

Intro

With NetBackup 7.5 and OpsCenter 7.5 demos, I've seen that restores are much more manageable for ops than before.  I'd long awaited the day that I could have a simple restore administrator look for files and restore them without having to integrate seven layers of internal support.  Now, a simple call to the helpdesk can be routed to an op who can handle a simple file restore.  At least, I hope that's what can happen.

I'm more concerned about security than anything else.  Anyone who can handle sensitive backup data also has the potential to destroy and/or own a system that is being restored.  For example, I could make a well-placed file that gets backed up--let's call it myfile.txt--and restore it over a nice simple critical file like /etc/passwd or /etc/sudoers.  I haven't seen if the new OpsCenter has this sort of limitation (I'm still going over the new features) yet, but I can tell...