Backup Central

Hi There,

I am not a power user or Arcserve by any means. A client of ours is running version 12 and GFS is in place. Basically the backups would be running fine for a few days and then suddenly it would fail on any given day because the tape it was expecting on that tape (say Thursday) was labeled differently to what the software was expecting even though physically the Thursday tape was inserted.

I find myself having to re-format the tape so its blank media to get it to backup.

This could be something basic Im not sure. I have no experience with this product so be as basic as you want to be with questions.

Many thanks

I meant to post this error code from the log

*******************[MESSAGES OF MASTER JOB]*******************CA ARCserve Backup -- Backup[SubJob]Totals For................... Master JobJob No....................... 2Job ID....................... 250Total Session(s)............. 0Total Skip(s)................ 0Total Size (Disk)............ 0 KBTotal Size (Media)........... 0 KBElapsed Time................. 0sAverage Throughput........... 0 KB/minTotal Error(s)/Warning(s).... 1/1The following media can be used in device group HPDLT for next job on date 10/08/10:1. W-DAILY1-FRI- 6/11/10 [S/N:1500000,SEQ:1] DAILY1_WLY2. W-DAILY1-FRI- 7/16/10 [S/N:1500001,SEQ:1] DAILY1_WLY3. W-DAILY1-FRI- 7/23/10 [S/N:1500002,SEQ:1] DAILY1_WLY4. <BLANK>Backup Operation Failed.[ERRORS & WARNINGS]08/10/2010 00:00:24 W5982 Mount media request in Group HPDLT timeout.08/10/2010 00:00:24 E3834 Unable to find any suitable media that can be used in this job.

available tape names to be used for the job don't match the tape name you are mentioning.
You mention a tape name Thursday, and that would be normal for a Rotation job.
However the log entry mentions names like W-DAILY1-FRI- 6/11/10, which are typical of a GFS job.

GFS has a much more complicated rotation scheem and fit well for installations with a tape library.

However for installations with a stand alone tape drive a Rotation (non GFS) job works much better. In that case on Monday the job looks for the Monday tape, etc.

So...
select the job from the Job Status window,
modify and change Schedule from GFS to Rotation
under Options Backup Media set it to Overwrite any media.

Now only thing is that the tapes will still need to be erased prior to the job but only one time. This is because of the change in the job so they will be removed from the old and introduced into the new job.

Also if the client is under contract with CA then upgrades are free and they will be very well served by going to version 15.0.

thanks a lot for the reply.

when you say change the schedule to rotation I do the following

1. modify job
2. click on schedule tab (4th tab on the right)
3. what do I do here? the scheme name is 5-day weekly full backup with gfs enabled so do I choose just a 5 day full backup? if I do that what media pool do I then select? I have not set this up sorry I have just inherited it

Yes that is the Schedule tab and select Rotation without GFS with a new Media Pool. Then go into the Media Pool and right click to select to add media to the pool. Since the existing tapes are from a different backup set the modified non GFS job will not use them, unless you manually add them to the Media Pool or do a Quick Erase on the first.

Strong recommendation is to read the Admin Guide, it will provide a wealth of knowledge.

Thanks

so now I select 5 day weekly full backup

in the "medial pool used" box it is blank and if I click on the media tab it is also blank

what should I choose for the media pool used? options are

daily_dly
dail_mly
daily_test
daily_wly
daily1_dly
daily1_mly
dail1_wly

thanks

Enter a new name to creat a new media pool. when you submit the job the media pool will automatically be created.

I have changed the schedule and saved it but everytime I go back to the main screen it still shows the old job?

Did you "save" or "submit" the job?
Only Submit will repackage the job back into the queue with the changes.

the save option is greyed out and I dont see a submit option?

You said you saved it???

submit is the green and blue circle that says "submit" under in in to tool bar.

Thank you so much

OK so for tonight when I look at the tape the job is expecting it says

The following media can be used in device group HPDLT for next job on date 10/26/10:1. <BLANK>

when I look at the tape for tonight its label is Tuesday so I am guessing that this will fail? why would it not be looking for the tuesday tape? The media Pool is my new media pool and not the old one (which used GFS).

thanks

Check the settings of the Media Pool.
There are two, # of media and # of days.
If # of media is 5, and the # of days is 7, then only when there are 5 tapes in the Save set with one there for 7 days will a tape be moved to the Scratch set when a 6th tape is moved into the Save set.

I decided to run the backup job for tonight early and it was 11 % in to it when it looked for a blank media or any media in scratch set of media pool (mypool) to continue backup? so needless to say it failed.