ADSM-L

Horrible Experience - Fun ending...

2006-11-28 16:23:06
Subject: Horrible Experience - Fun ending...
From: Doug Fox <dugfox AT GMAIL DOT COM>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:22:08 -0500
So over the last year or so I have been working with TSM. No prior
experience with it, SQL, AIX, UNIX, or any backup solutions what-so-ever.
I've gone through a LOT of issues with the system since taking it over. I
inhereted the system while it was on its last legs, and so far we've worked
to get it overhauled and running great. New disc, upgraded OS, upgraded TSM.
I hadn't had any issues with the library in months until I notice our
scratch count steadily decreasing, and our offsite tapes not coming back.
After this amount of time I thought I had a pretty good handle on things.

So I was on the phone with a contractor going over some things to tweak here
and there. We checked reclamation thresholds, durations, filling tapes,
error tapes, etc. All of the basics were touched. We went through the
console logs and there wasn't anything noticable, but our scratch seemed to
just melt away. I was at my wits ends. I figured as a last resort I would
tell him my daily routine. For the last 1.5yrs in the morning I would check
for bad tapes, and check for 0% utilized full tapes, you know, the basics. I
mentioned that one of the things that I did was search: q vol status=empty. I
was always curious about these tapes since I thought they just sat there...
So I had asked if I could delete them to try and free up some scratch nice
and quick.

The contractor I spoke with said it was really indifferent since they would
become scratch tapes. So I went ahead and cleaned them out...You may see the
issue already....

Well. After speaking with him about this I had asked that I wasn't sure if
those tapes that I was deleting were ever coming back form
offsite...well...they weren't. OMG... After a few weeks of tweaks and things
we were now down to '2' scratch tapes in our environment. We went ahead and
ordered 20 LTO3 tapes...In the meantime I did an audit on the library and
just found 218 unaccounted tapes.... hahaha.

I was deleting the 'empty' tapes before our DR Script kicked off, which was
in turn not reporting to us that these tapes needed to be retrieved from off
site. So the tapes were getting deleted...and just sat there. I was never
told one way or another about how to do things since my stupid butt is the
one 'in charge' of TSM here. I know more than the people I work with and
they weren't any help so it was hard to get more help without paying for it.

Well, the case is closed. I'm an idiot...but with no formal training on
anything...I feel good I finally found the ghost in the machine working
against me...it was me. Woohoo!!!

We currently have 123 Scratch and another 20 on order coming in... Yeah.. I
think we're set.

At least I thought it was funny....



Douglas Fox
Resident TSM Newbie

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Horrible Experience - Fun ending..., Doug Fox <=