Retired library - nobody did anything with the tapes!?

[dubweiser]

Hey guys -

I've recently inherited a TSM environment that, at one point, had physical tape libraries with tapes going offsite to Iron Mountain. They decided it would be wise to move to a Data Domain VTL setup. The new Data Domain library is working fine, but there are a bunch of old tapes still hanging around and I'm not sure how to deal with this.

I believe they deleted the old library from TSM, but left the storage pools:

tsm: DAPTSM01>q stgpool

Storage Device Storage Estimated Pct Pct Hig- Lo- Next Stora-
Pool Name Class Name Type Capacity Util Migr h M- w ge Pool
ig Mi-
Pct g
Pct
----------- ---------- --------- ---------- ----- ----- ---- --- -----------
DDFILEPOOL DDFILE DEVCLASS 0.0 M 0.0 0.0 90 70
TAPE_MONTHLY LTO4 DEVCLASS 0.0 M 0.0 0.0 90 70
TAPE_OFFSITE LTO4 DEVCLASS 2,229,779 G 0.0
TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 DEVCLASS 2,753,581 G 0.0 1.8 100 0 VTL_ONSITE
VTL_ONSITE LTO4_VTL DEVCLASS 344,988 G 19.1 44.0 90 70


The tree storage pools that begin with "TAPE_" are the pools that were left behind. All of the tapes are in boxes in a closet, and the library has been Ecycled.



tsm: DAPTSM01>q vol stgpool=tape_onsite

Volume Name Storage Device Estimate- Pct Volume
Pool Name Class Name d Capaci- Util Status
ty
------------------------ ----------- ---------- --------- ----- --------
B00005L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 3.0 T 0.0 Full
B00016L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.8 T 0.3 Full
B00025L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 3.0 T 0.0 Filling
B00028L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.3 T 0.0 Full
B00030L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.8 T 0.0 Full
B00036L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.6 T 0.0 Full
B00048L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.1 T 0.4 Full
B00049L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.8 T 0.0 Full
B00054L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 3.0 T 0.1 Full
B00059L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.8 T 0.0 Full
B00147L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.3 T 0.0 Full
B00165L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 3.1 T 0.0 Full
B00172L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.5 T 0.0 Full
B00175L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.9 T 0.0 Full
B00180L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.7 T 1.0 Full
B00186L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 3.5 T 0.0 Full
B00205L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.4 T 0.0 Full
B00207L4 TAPE_ONSITE LTO4 2.0 T 0.0 Full


tsm: DAPTSM01>q vol stgpool=tape_offsite

Volume Name Storage Device Estimate- Pct Volume
Pool Name Class Name d Capaci- Util Status
ty
------------------------ ----------- ---------- --------- ----- --------
B00006L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.2 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00008L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.4 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00017L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.2 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00018L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.8 T 0.1 Filling
TE
B00019L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.7 T 0.1 Filling
TE
B00040L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.5 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00041L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.4 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00052L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.8 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00057L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.7 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00073L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.2 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00082L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.1 T 0.2 Filling
TE
B00084L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.6 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00086L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.3 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00121L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.7 T 7.2 Filling
TE
B00122L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.5 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00133L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.8 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00144L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.4 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00152L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.9 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00156L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 0.0 M 0.0 Empty
TE
B00167L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.2 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00168L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.8 T 2.6 Filling
TE
B00169L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.1 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00170L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.3 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00173L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.5 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00182L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.5 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00187L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.2 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00189L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.5 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00190L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.2 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00191L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.8 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00196L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.3 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00198L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.5 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00202L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.1 T 0.5 Filling
TE
B00203L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.1 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00204L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.1 T 0.0 Full
TE
B00215L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 1.5 T 0.0 Filling
TE
B00217L4 TAPE_OFFSI- LTO4 2.3 T 0.1 Full
TE


tsm: DAPTSM01>q drm

Volume Name State Last Update Automated
Date/Time LibName
---------------- ----------------- ------------------- ----------------
B00006L4 Vault 07/09/2013 08:15:01
B00008L4 Vault 11/26/2013 09:24:34
B00017L4 Vault 02/28/2014 09:56:36
B00018L4 Vault 07/06/2011 14:27:05
B00019L4 Vault 02/27/2014 08:46:12
B00041L4 Vault 03/10/2014 08:09:48
B00052L4 Vault 02/21/2014 08:18:08
B00057L4 Vault 08/05/2013 08:47:31
B00073L4 Vault 08/21/2013 08:52:11
B00082L4 Vault 02/25/2014 12:43:09
B00086L4 Vault 03/05/2014 13:54:33
B00121L4 Vault 05/01/2014 07:58:09
B00122L4 Vault 06/25/2014 10:33:10
B00133L4 Vault 12/04/2013 14:30:22
B00144L4 Vault 01/20/2014 15:22:05
B00152L4 Vault 12/10/2013 15:37:23
B00156L4 Courier retrieve 08/14/2013 16:09:39
B00167L4 Vault 12/26/2013 08:15:16
B00168L4 Vault 07/26/2013 13:36:26
B00169L4 Vault 09/09/2013 09:36:08
B00170L4 Vault 08/05/2013 08:48:00
B00173L4 Vault 03/03/2014 16:03:43
B00182L4 Vault 03/06/2014 09:46:42
B00187L4 Vault 03/03/2014 08:19:38
B00189L4 Vault 08/26/2013 15:08:07
B00190L4 Vault 03/07/2014 08:40:33
B00191L4 Vault 10/14/2013 09:46:56
B00196L4 Vault 02/03/2014 11:35:50
B00198L4 Vault 03/24/2014 08:11:38
B00202L4 Vault 02/21/2014 16:34:21
B00203L4 Vault 03/06/2014 09:48:11
B00204L4 Vault 02/18/2014 10:40:12
B00215L4 Vault 03/31/2014 08:01:26
B00217L4 Vault 02/21/2014 16:35:52
W00034L4 Mountable 07/11/2017 03:00:18 DDLIB
W00095L4 Mountable 07/09/2017 03:00:04 DDLIB
W00145L4 Mountable 07/08/2017 03:00:13 DDLIB
W00075L4 Mountable 07/07/2017 03:00:20 DDLIB

 

[marclant]

Do you still have the library on premise or even just a single tape drive?

You don't really need to worry about the copy pool tapes. But all the primary pool tapes still contain data. So you have two options:

First one (preferred), do a MOVE DATA to move the data on the primary pool tapes to the VTL, but you need at least one tape drive to do that.

Second one is to delete those volume with discarddata=yes. As it implies, you will lose the data on those tapes. But if you have no way to mount those tapes anyway, the data is really useless anyway. If there were some active files on those tapes, those will be backed up again by the clients during the next backup. But inactives will be lost for good.

For the copypool tapes, you can delete them all with discarddata=yes. If/when the data is moved to the VTL, that data will be captured by the backup stgpool you perform there. If you just end up deleting the primary volumes, the data referenced on the copy pool tapes would be deleted anyway.

 

[RecoveryOne]

Second one is to delete those volume with discarddata=yes. As it implies, you will lose the data on those tapes. But if you have no way to mount those tapes anyway, the data is really useless anyway. If there were some active files on those tapes, those will be backed up again by the clients during the next backup. But inactives will be lost for good.

Just wanted to add my two cents to what Marclant is saying. The tapes could have been left for a reason, legal or other. Depending on your local laws, you may have to keep those tapes. Now, how to access those volumes would be determined by your business policy/legal team.

It may be a worth while endeavor whip up a script to do a q content on those primary volumes just so you are aware of whats on them.