[Veritas-bu] What's the rule for tape-picking?

Have you gotten an answer on this yet?

Well from the Media server perspective, when it is handed a job from the
Master, it takes particular notice of a couple of things in order to
make the right media selection.

For Example:
1. Volume Pool
2. Retention
3. Density
4. Media State (full, frozen, suspended, etc.)

If it finds that one of the media in its DB satisfies its requirement
request (and the tape is not in use), then it will mount one of the tape
in its MEDIADB, if not it will make a request  to the volHOST (typically
the master server) for a tape that meets its requirements

For Example:
1.Volume Pool
2.Density
3.Condition (number of mounts, etc.)

It doesn't select the media numerically based on the ID, but numerically
based on the number of mounts.  The one with fewer mounts should be
selected first.  If you check the number of mounts on tape 000191, you
may find that it was less than 000190.

Not knowing your environment it is difficult to comment on why it didn't
select your active media for your backup jobs, but perhaps some of this
may help.

David

PS.  This selection flow is a very simplistic view of a complex process,
more goes into it than I am describing.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu 
>[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of 
>Louis-Luc Le Guerrier
>Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 10:36 AM
>To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
>Subject: [Veritas-bu] What's the rule for tape-picking?
>
>
>Hello,
>I'm using NB 3.4, and I have a volume pool with different
>tapes available. Let's give an example:
>
>Tape   Bytes used      Status
>000188 5236246         Active
>000189 2634674         Active
>000190 -               Available
>000191 -               Available
>
>All these tapes are in the same volume pool, and likely to
>be picked to put the data of the next backup job.
>I have 2 drives, so on the next backup session when jobs
>start, I want to use 000188 and 000189 in each drive, until 
>they're full, before picking another tape.
>
>Usually Volume Manager does it right, but last time in this 
>example, it picked 000189, and 000191, leaving 000188 behind. 
>Furthermore, I'd expect 000190 to be used before 000191, 
>because of numerical order.
>
>Does anyone know the tape picking rule? Or is there a way to 
>change it? Ideally, I'd like to make the ACTIVE tapes picked 
>first, then the lower-numbered labelled tapes among the AVAILABLE ones.
>
>Thank you for any help.
>Louis-Luc
>
>P.S.: I'll soon upgrade to NB 4.5, so is there any difference?
>
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