[Networker] Staging in Networker

Calvin,
I am interested in your points #3 and #6.  I opened a case with
Legato Tech. Support in December 2000 (case #2053912) and
they concluded that staging policies could not handle savesets
which spanned file devices.  I was running Networker 6.0.1 build 174
on Solaris 6 or 7 at the time and had two partitions on separate spindles
 and two Networker file devices as you describe, but any saveset that
spanned 2  file devices was never staged to tape.
nsrstage uses nsrclone, and cloning savesets
that spanned tapes never seems to be a problem for us.
The man page for nsrclone in the EXAMPLES section states:
"Only complete savesets can be copied by nsrclone".

The explanation I was given was that staging was somehow marking savesets
as incomplete if they spanned file devices and that staging was
not designed for the way I wanted to implement it.   :(

It would be great if this limitation has been fixed since 6.0.1 or
if Legato Technical Support gave me an incomplete explanation 2 years
ago.

Glenn Britton
University Of Toronto
Computing and Networking Services
255 Huron Street
Toronto, ON, CANADA
britton AT noc.utoronto DOT ca
>
> Date:    Wed, 30 Oct 2002 12:35:15 -0800
> From:    Calvin Thomas <calvin.thomas AT NACALOGISTICS DOT COM>
> Subject: Re: Staging in Networker?
>
> I am currently working on this.
> I asked the same question(s) previously and got some good info from this
> group. Here is what I have found out so far.
>
> 1. Do NOT use a single file device. If you do, this is what happens.  When
> the file device is full, it will stop the backup, and stage off to tape. If
> you have a single large file device this will take a long time, and your
> backup job will fail.  Not Acceptable.
> 2. Create 2 or more partitions, and a file device in each.  I am setting up
> 5 - 35 GB devices as I write this.  Then you total up the amount of space
> that will give you (175GB in my case),  figure out the largest backup you
> will need to do (78 GB in my case), and set the high water mark of all the
> devices to ensure that you always have enough space for your largest backup
> ( 80GB for me).
> 3. When you backup to one file device and the file device gets full, it is
> marked read only, and the save job continues on the next file device.
> 4. When one file device is stageing off to tape, a different file device is
> accepting data for your backup job.
> 5. A file device can either Read, or Write, but NOT both at the same time.
> Hence the need for multiple devices.
> 6. When you set up a staging policy in networker, be SURE and include all
> the file devices in your pool in the same stageing policy.  This insures the
> staging policy can transfer the complete save sets from hard drive to tape
> without leaving part of a save set on a hard drive that staging can't
> control.
> ....
> ....
>
> Calvin E. Thomas
> UNIX System Administrator
> NACA Logistics
>
>

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