Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] A question about Auto Clean Feature in STK L700

2000-11-29 16:11:42
Subject: [Veritas-bu] A question about Auto Clean Feature in STK L700
From: David A. Chapa david AT datastaff DOT com
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 13:11:42 -0800 (PST)
Are the drive's lights flashing indicating that they need to be cleaned?

It may not be the drives at all but rather the tapes.  

>From what I understand about the DLT cleaning process, there is an
internal clock on the drives that turn on the lights indicating a cleaning
is needed.  The cleaning tape is mounted and internally the amplitude and
resistance of the drive heads are measured.  If they are outside the
normal operating area, the drive attempts to reset the heads as a matter
of maintanence, if it can't the drive is 'deemed' no longer useful.

However, it does sound like there is something more to it with your
specific situation (with regard to the auto-clean).

David

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David A. Chapa
Consulting Manager
DataStaff, Inc.
847 413 1144

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Andrey Shinkarev wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 29, 2000 at 03:34:15PM -0500, Lee Kolinsky wrote:
> Lee, 
> 
>         We haven't had this problem for a three months or so since 
> we've got STK libraries. Now I think the tape drives 
> are getting dirty and some of them were used more than 600 hours 
> We have 3 STK L700 and have the problem on all of them, more or
> less, mostly on the library which is usign 3-4 years old tapes.
> For the last weekend we lost 5 tape drives in two libraries, 
> it's too much. 
>       It also depends on loading of you robots. If you have 
> enough tape drives to run backups without jobs queuning and waiting 
> for an available tape drive - you will never have this 
> problem. 
>       I got responses from 3 different people who has the same
> problem and working on fixing the problem with Veritas and StorageTek. 
> ( the same as we do )
> 
> Thanks,
> Andrew
> 
> > Andrey,
> > 
> > All I am going to say is this ...
> > I have (2 x STK-9710's) + (2 x STK-9740's) + (2 x STK-L700's)
> > In all cases I let the robot clean the drives as needed.
> > I am runing NB 3.2 Patch 443 and starting to use SSO.
> > I have yet to run into a problem with tape mounts colliding with 
> > drive cleanings that I am aware of.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Andrey Shinkarev wrote:
> > > 
> > > I've got some responses from different people which allow me to say
> > > Auto Clean feature on STK L700 doesn't work with NetBackup 3.2
> > > with SSO.
> > > According to Veritas Tech Support:
> > > 
> > > > The robot has to be smart enough to not load a real tape into a drive 
> > > > that
> > > > already has a cleaning tape, if it is going to support this option.
> > > > NetBackup only makes requests of the robot, the robot has to keep track 
> > > > of
> > > > what it's doing... but, you already know this.
> > > 
> > > Does anyone know how Tape Alert feature works on STK L700 libraries?
> > > Does it work or not?
> > > 
> > > Another question:
> > > Cleaning on time basis is not recomended for multihosted tape drives.
> > > is it becouse of inability of NetBackup to count of time usage on
> > > different systems?
> > > 
> > > Thanks again for everyone who responded for me.
> > > Andrew
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Nov 28, 2000 at 08:55:44AM -0600, Andrey Shinkarev wrote:
> > > 
> > > > We are using Auto Clean Feature in our STK L700 with DLT7000 tape 
> > > > drives.
> > > > It works fine but sometimes we are getting tape drives downed for
> > > > the following reason
> > > >
> > > > Nov 19 17:02:28 uback-ap9-1 tldcd[16650]: TLD(6) key = 0x5, asc = 0x3a, 
> > > > ascq = 0
> > > > x0, MEDIUM NOT PRESENT
> > > > Nov 19 17:02:28 uback-ap9-1 tldcd[16650]: TLD(6) Move_medium error: 
> > > > CHECK CONDIT
> > > > ION
> > > > Nov 19 17:02:28 uback-ap9-1 tldcd[16650]: TLD(6) could not move 
> > > > barcoded tape CL
> > > > N499   from drive 6 to outport
> > > > Nov 19 17:02:28 uback-ap9-1 tldd[17882]: TLD(6) drive 6 (device 5) is 
> > > > being DOWN
> > > > ED, status: Robotic dismount failure
> > > > Nov 19 17:02:28 uback-ap9-1 tldd[17882]: Check integrity of the drive, 
> > > > drive pat
> > > > h, and media
> > > >
> > > > We are running 3.2 with the patch 443.
> > > >
> > > > If anyone had this problem before?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > The problem is NetBackup doesn't know about the cleaing tape and has 0
> > > > cleaning interval for the tape drive. If I try to clean the tape drive
> > > > I am getting "No cleaning tape defined in the device's robot"
> > > > And the cleaning tape itself doesn't  exist in NetBackup database.
> > > > I couldn't find any cleaning request in log files, for an old libraries
> > > > without the Auto Clean feature I saw them a lot.
> > > > We have 3 libraries and having the problem on all of them.
> > > > Fast Load feature doesn't solve the problem. We have had it
> > > > enabled and disabled but still had this problem.
> > > >
> > > > The Auto Clean Feature works but it looks like NetBackup and
> > > > the library fight for the tape drive and NetBackup doens't win.
> > > > I think the cleaning operation should be blocked and NetBackup
> > > > must wait until it's done.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > --
> > > > ----
> > > > Andrew Shinkarev
> > > > Network Systems Specialist
> > > > Abbott Laboratories
> > > > (847) 9387559
> > > > shinkara AT pprd.abbott DOT com
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
> > > > http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
> > > 
> > > --
> > > ----
> > > Andrew Shinkarev
> > > Network Systems Specialist
> > > Abbott Laboratories
> > > (847) 9387559
> > > shinkara AT pprd.abbott DOT com
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
> > > http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > --Lee
> > 
> > Client Site: EATON Corp. Cleveland OH (440) 954-5626
> > ----------------------_-----------------------_--------------------------
> >  Lee S. Kolinsky     |_| C o l l e c t i v e |_|   kolinsky AT colltech DOT 
> > com
> >  Pager: 800/946-4646 |___   Technologies    ___|  http://www.colltech.com
> >  Pin #: 148-3408         O                 O     "The Power Of Many Minds"
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >          What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
> 
> -- 
> ----
> Andrew Shinkarev
> Network Systems Specialist
> Abbott Laboratories
> (847) 9387559
> shinkara AT pprd.abbott DOT com
> _______________________________________________
> Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
> http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
>