Re-use tapes

[stetsip]

Hi,

My environment is AIX, TSM 5.3

I have tape 15 volumes that are reported "private"
I am short of tapes and I want to reuse the old tapes.

Please how can I remove the used tapes from the TSM?
I have to relabel them for use again as new ones?
Is safe to delete old tapes?
If i delete all the tapes it will make all the backups as the first day of use?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[LED888]

TSM 5.3 have been out of support since 2014.

Here is the public ftp site that have the TSM 5.X Manuals.

Index of /software/products/TSM/end_of_service

public.dhe.ibm.com

Please how can I remove the used tapes from the TSM?

With the checkout libv command.

I have to relabel them for use again as new ones?

No.
We only label new media.
If you suspect that there is an issue with the internal label, can relabel the media.

Is safe to delete old tapes?

These tapes, are they define to a primary tape pool, archive pool or a copy pool?
If the tapes are not define to a storage pool, are they being tracked via the volume history?
Q VOLHIST will list all the volumes that are tracked via the volhist.

If i delete all the tapes it will make all the backups as the first day of use?

I do not understand your question.
If we delete all the tapes, then all the clients will perform a full backup.


Good Luck,
Sias

 

[stetsip]

TSM 5.3 have been out of support since 2014.

Here is the public ftp site that have the TSM 5.X Manuals.

Index of /software/products/TSM/end_of_service

public.dhe.ibm.com

With the checkout libv command.


No.
We only label the media only if they are new.
If you suspect that there is an issue with the internal label, can relabel the media.


These tapes, are they define to a primary tape pool, archive pool or a copy pool?
If the tapes are not define to a storage pool, are they being tracked via the volume history?
Q VOLHIST will list all the volumes that are tracked via the volhist.


I do not understand your question.
If we delete all the tapes, then all the clients will perform a full backup.


Good Luck,
Sias

Thank you for your help and time!

I have the following stgpools:
tsm: TSM>Q STGPOOL

Storage Device Estimated Pct Pct High Low Next Stora-
Pool Name Class Name Capacity Util Migr Mig Mig ge Pool
Pct Pct
----------- ---------- ---------- ----- ----- ---- --- -----------
DISKPOOL DISK 10 G 90,7 90,7 50 10
PRDPOOL PRDPOOL LTO_CLASS- 720.134 G 0,0 1,6 90 70

I have usually errors during backup because the tapes are full.
Maybe there is an error (like expiration etc) but i havent experience how to check and fix it (i am afraid).

Is good idea to delete all lto tapes and make backup such as first day the IBM installed TSM at our company using the current tsm schedule? (as i unterstand the lto tapes are using for backup of oracle DB , 2 AIX and 2 windows servers).

Can i free storage at stgpools so i don't need to delete lto?

How to find which lto tapes i can re-use?

Thank you again for your help!

 

[LED888]

From the Q STG out put, we only have a disk pool and a tape pool.

I have usually errors during backup because the tapes are full.

When there are no space available in the diskpool and tape pool, this is is correct if we are receiving the message that the server is out of storage space.

Maybe there is an error (like expiration etc) but i havent experience how to check and fix it (i am afraid)

You have the advantage on me.
Review the activity log. It's really not a log file, its a record of what is going on with the TSM Server.
Via the TSM Server Command Line (dsmadmc) issue: q act
For more information about the "q act" via the dsmadmc issue: help q act
Or look up the q act in the TSM Server manual.
Or do a google search for TSM Server and query activity log.

Is good idea to delete all lto tapes and make backup such as first day the IBM installed TSM at our company using the current tsm schedule? (as i unterstand the lto tapes are using for backup of oracle DB , 2 AIX and 2 windows servers).

That all depends what you can tolerate and if the company is okay with you deleting all the data on the LTO tapes.
If we delete all the LTO tapes, an end user will not be able to restore any data that was previously backed up.
When the next schedule backup run, ALL the clients will perform a full backup and there will be heavy network traffic.

Can i free storage at stgpools so i don't need to delete lto?

- Increase the capacity of the disk pool. Of course, once we hit the high migration threshold, the TSM Server will try to move the data into the tape pool. The migration process will fail if there is no space in the tape pool.

- Add more scratch tape into the tape library.

How to find which lto tapes i can re-use?

Issue q volume look for tapes that have low pct util, then issue a move data
If the move data fails, then there is no space on other tapes to move the data to.

Good Luck,
Sias

 

[Sunhillow]

Stupid question: do you run space reclamation on your tape pool?

 

[LED888]

Stupid question: do you run space reclamation on your tape pool?

There are no stupid question, some one else may have the same question.

Do hummingbirds hum because they don't know the words?
Okay ... you got me.

Do you understand how space reclamation works?
If not, do suggest that you read the following -
How Tivoli Storage Manager reclamation works

For me the space reclamation threshold is set to the default of 60

The optimal range for space reclamation are from 60 to 75.
This is were we trade in 1 scratch tape and get 2, maybe 3, scratch tapes in return.
The higher the value, the more tapes we get back as scratch but the process does not run that often.

Every now and then I issue: recl stg pool_name th=95
This will reclaim any tapes where 95% of the data have expire.
If there are no tapes that meet this threshold, reissue the command again with th=85, monitor and then repeat until we reach 60.

Reason: If during the space reclamation process and if a higher process preempt the process, there are going to be tapes with 80+ to possibly 90+ reclaimable space that are not process via the space reclamation.