We ponder this quite often as our tapes come up for recycling.   Networker
is usually right though and seems to know better then us.

You can
do a mminfo -a -p -v 000098  and it will show you the retention of each
saveset on the tape.   Still you may find all the expire/retention dates
have pasted.   You can do a mminfo -a -v 000098 and look  for savesets
with a "E" flag as recycle and no "E" (still browsable?).

In short Networker keeps track of dependencies of the save sets; even though
all savesets on the tape have reached their retention period there are still
other savesets that depend on them..ie. incrementals or level 9's that
depend on a full level saveset.    When these other dependent savesets reach
their retention then Networker will recycle/expire the saveset on the tape
in question and thus the tape.


Robert Maiello
Thomson Healthcare

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:14:56 +0100, Staudenmaier, Thomas (ZKD)
<Thomas.Staudenmaier AT ZKD.BWL DOT DE> wrote:

>Hello there,
>
>perhaps someone can introduce me to the secrets of how Networker handles
>retention policies and when volumes are marked as recycleable.
>Here in my setup (W2K, Networker 7.1 Build 320) I have volumes where the
>retention time has been reached but who are not marked eligible for
>recycling:
>
>mminfo -m -q "full,volretent<today"
>   volume                  written  (%)  expires     read mounts capacity
>E  000003                   267 GB full   expired    0 KB    27     97 GB
>   000004                   137 GB full 17.02.2004   0 KB   104     97 GB
>   000006                   119 GB full 02.03.2004   0 KB    86     97 GB
>E  000008                   268 GB full   expired    0 KB    40     97 GB
>E  000011                   233 GB full   expired 1748 MB   222     97 GB
>   000012                   133 GB full 28.02.2004   0 KB   152     97 GB
>E  000019                   264 GB full   expired    0 KB    10     97 GB
>E  000023                   144 GB full   expired    0 KB    66     97 GB
>E  000034                    57 GB full   expired    0 KB   281     97 GB
>E  000036                    57 GB full   expired    0 KB    78     97 GB
>E  000053                   272 GB full   expired    0 KB    20    100 GB
>E  000054                   195 GB full   expired    0 KB    14     97 GB
>   000056                   143 GB full 17.02.2004   0 KB    37    100 GB
>E  000058                   220 GB full   expired  925 MB   295     97 GB
>E  000076                     0 KB full   expired    0 KB     1     95 GB
>   000091                   312 GB full 18.02.2004   0 KB   625     95 GB
>E  000097                   270 GB full   expired  118 GB     9     95 GB
>   000098                   158 GB full 21.02.2004   0 KB    35     95 GB
>E  000108                     0 KB full   expired    0 KB     3     95 GB
>E  000119                     0 KB full   expired    0 KB     1     95 GB
>E  000139                     0 KB full   expired    0 KB     4     95 GB
>
>Today is 12.03.2003 so why are volumes 4,6,12,56,91,98 not ready for
>recycling?
>
>Thanks for your input
>Thomas
>
>--
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Note: To sign off this list, send a "signoff networker" command via email
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