Mathias Körber wrote:
I am about to deploy Amanda for a customer, and there are
some concerns that the end-users responsible for inserting the
correct tapes may not be up to the task.
In detail:
- users will not read the daily email telling them which
tape is expected and want to have a scheme as simple as
possible
Label all the needed tapes in the correct sequence. This will fill
the "tapelist" file with all the tapenumbers ready to be used.
I just (a month ago) did exactly this, and the only instruction
I had to give: "insert the next numbered tape each day you are
in the office". The tapes are labelled DAILY-01 up to DAILY-60.
(Yes, they have a very large history, but it's only DDS-2 tapes.)
You can verify the tapelist file by hand, before shipping the
configuration.
- users will not understand that 18 tapes make a 3 week cycle
(assuming weekday backups only). Ie, the 'a few extra tapes'
may be confusing
They don't need to know. You only have to make sure, you have a
large enough margin if they "forget" to insert the daily tapes.
Tapecycle >> dumpcycle (>> == is much larger than).
(My 60 tape cycle above is quite large compared to a 5 day dumpcycle.)
- Amanda's way to say 'a new tape' will confuse the use if they
actually
read the emails. They will want to be told exactly which tape
to insert (or better deduct using dead simple reasoning)
If the "tapelist" file is correct, it will not as for "a new tape".
- should a tape need to be skipped (for whatever reason) and
eg tape 15 follow tape 13, thsi will later confuse the users as
the sequence will get jumbled.
You only need to skip a tape if you screwed up. Again if you have
a large margin (tapecycle >> dumpcylce), you can even manually update
the tapelist file: Amanda will ask for the tape on the last line of
tapelist (if the number of lines in tapelist is >= tapecycle).
We obviously want to hold to a minimum support questions regarding which
tape
is to be used andwhy is the sequence not like ...
My boss sugegsted a simple scheme of
Week 1 Monday
Week 1 Tuesday
thru
Week 3 Thursday
Week 3 Friday
Warning! This is exactly the tapelabeling that makes you skip tapes!
What if Tuesday is a day off? You're running into the problem that
you want to avoid here!!!
I was thinking that it would be nice if Amanda had a more flexible
way of labelling tapes (ie a mapping between internal rotation labels
and human readable ones).
I've never felt the need for such a thing. (Contrary to many questions
with this setup I had in the beginning :-) )
I am considering:
dumpcycle 1 weeks
runspercycle 15
tapecycle 15 tapes
to make it match 3 5 day weeks as near as possible.
That would work out very well, I guess.
How can I make Amanda ask for a tape by name even
if I just started the first cycle( in which case it
always requests a 'new tape' wven though all tapes ar
already in the tapelist after beinglabelled)?
Just make sure the "tapelist" file has the correct order.
Would it help to edit tapelist to put dummy dates against
In a standard setup that's already done. The dummy date is "0".
each one to make it thing the so far unused tapes
have in the past been used and are up for re-use in
the normal cycle, or will that confuse other parts of
Amanda (eg the balancing, history etc)?
No problem.
PS. I also have the "autoflush" option enabled. Even on
a day off in their office, they just continue inserting
"the next tape", and after a few days, amanda has catched
up all by herself, all without manually running "amflush".
Off course, this works only well if you have enough free
space on a tape in a normal run.
--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/ email: Paul.Bijnens AT xplanation DOT com
***********************************************************************
* I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, *
* quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, *
* stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, *
* PF4, F20, ^X^X, :D::D, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, *
* kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... *
* ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out *
***********************************************************************
| 