DRM not recalling all the tapes it should ? or is it ?

[Monkeh]

Hi



I have been looking at all the tapes that DRM knows about on our system using the command



select volume_name,state,location,stgpool_name,lib_name,voltype from drmedia (TSM MANAGER)



this reports that there are 389 volumes in total.

I know for a fact that there are over 1200 tapes in circulation, mostly in iron mountain, as the library only has 160 data tapes.



This got me thinking, i send 7 db backup tapes offsite every week, but i do not have 7 tapes a week show up in "Vault Retrieve" status ? How does TSM keep track of the tapes.



Looking at the DRM plan, my db tapes are set to expire after 7 days & and all my primary and copypool's are set in the plan.





I think i am going to have to get on the DRM course !!

 

[custew]

Do you have a script that deletes the volume history of DB backups? If so, this could cause your problems.

 

[Monkeh]

yep, it turns out that i shouldnt have a "delete volhist" schedule, when we have DRM.



This was supposably setup by a company who expertise is in TSM, but the amount of problems i'm finding on this system is shocking...



I have since found 535 tapes at iron Mountain that TSM does not know about, and we have been paying for storage of them !! :-o

 

[custew]

I've been in those exact shoes. On top of that, there were hundreds of tapesIN the library that belonged at the vault!



curtis

 

[wirb]

I have much the same problem and setup. I've been reading where you should not run delete volhist if you're using DRM. I haven't seen this in any of the manuals or online searches I've done...I'm now pretty confused. Should I or should I not run delete volhist? The TSM consultant who set up our system had it set to run every day, deleting all records older than 365 days. I've now got this job disabled, and will be simply running a del volhist t=dbb to delete all dbbackups older than 5 days. Would someone please chime in with any further clarification??

 

[jpnast]

I went to our offsite tape storage a couple days ago to do a tape inventory and found 400+ tapes that TSM/DRM had no clue about!



In doing research as to why this was happeining I ran across this posting. We had two admin scheds set up. One to delete the db backups after 11 days, and the other to do a volhist prune after 190 days! I deactivated the volhist prune. Wait and see what happens now... Thanks for the heads up!!!!!

 

[CBell]

DRM will process DB backup expiration for you. You can set up how many days you want to go back (I have set to 5 as well), and you would need to discontinue any 'delete volhist' jobs you may be running. I had to do this, and in particular I needed to deactivate my 'delete volhist' job I had running for dbbackups. Documents mention it in passing, as in the Admin Guide or DR Strategy guide.

 

[itdrew]

So to clarify:



If you are using DRM to manage your volumes, do NOT run ANY delete volhist commands. If you run the delete volhist before running DRM, your volumes will be removed from your volhist unbeknownst to DRM. When DRM runs, the volumes cannot be recalled because they are no longer in the volume history table.