I don't expire volumes - I re-use media with a 2-year retention.

>>Do you need to have the return date fall on some exact day or something?

Yes, and that's the rub.  In the past, Iron Mountain would not return media 
whose return date did not match a service date (though they tell me that is no 
longer the case --But I don't want another big hassle 5 years from now...)

>>Do you use the vltreturn field to schedule returns for your media?

No, this is just a convenient place to store the dates so I could compare my 
inventory to Iron Mountain's from time-to-time.  I'll look into using the 
Description field that somebody else suggested.

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu 
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of A Darren 
Dunham
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:34 PM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Need date calculation utility

On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 03:38:51PM -0800, Conner, Neil wrote:
> It's a little more complicated than that.  My retention periods are 2
> and 5 years.  Media going offsite for the first time are not a
> problem.  The problem I have is with media that have been called back
> from offsite prior to their return date. I've been storing my offsite
> details in the volume database with vmchange (-vltsent, -vltreturn),
> but as soon as I load a tape in the robot, its return date is reset to
> 00/00/0000 (is this configurable?) so I have to recalculate it based
> on the expiration date.

Okay, that's a separate problem than I understood from your first
question.

While vtlreturn might be modified, I believe that the volume expiration
date will remain.  I'm assuming your vault return time is similar to or
the same as your volume expiration time (which is based on the the
retention period), right?

If so, could it be as simple as setting the vault return time to the
expiration time?

> I suppose I could use your code example and work backwards to
> normalize the expiration date to a service date week and then work
> forward from there.

Do you need to have the return date fall on some exact day or something?
Do you use the vltreturn field to schedule returns for your media?

I don't think I really understand your goal yet.

-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
         < This line left intentionally blank to confuse you. >
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