Backup Central

OK, we have a Quantum SuperDLT1 tape drive, and an Overland LXB
autoloader, with ten (10) slot magazine and barcode reader. One slot is
the cleaning tape, which is controlled by the autoloader, and not by
the Amanda changer. Backups are to be performed seven (7) days per
week.

Amanda is backing up as expected, and tapes are being selected and
loaded without a hitch. This is a recent setup, and DLE's are being
configured and added every couple of days. So far, everything can fit
on one tape, even assuming level 0 on each DLE. As this environment
grows, that will not be the case.

Normally, Amanda's logic loves a large number of tapes. My office LAN,
manually changed, uses eighteen (1 DDS3 tapes. I have followed this
setup carefully for more than one year, and even as I add DLE's, Amanda
manages to get everything necessary on one tape per backup. All is
good.

With this current setup, nine (9) usable tapes, I wonder how best to
configure Amanda? Yes, we can manually swap out magazines as necessary;
but, we prefer that this site run as automagically as possible. To wit,
one magazine and nine tapes -- period.

How do you setup similar environments? What happens if a tape is, of a
sudden, bad when you need to restore?

What do you think?

--
Best Regards,

mds
mds resource
877.596.8237
-
Dare to fix things before they break . . .
-
Our capacity for understanding is inversely proportional to how much
we think we know. The more I know, the more I know I don't know . . .
--

On Saturday 10 July 2004 11:46, Michael D Schleif wrote:
OK, we have a Quantum SuperDLT1 tape drive, and an Overland LXB
autoloader, with ten (10) slot magazine and barcode reader. One
slot is the cleaning tape, which is controlled by the autoloader,
and not by the Amanda changer. Backups are to be performed seven
(7) days per week.

Amanda is backing up as expected, and tapes are being selected and
loaded without a hitch. This is a recent setup, and DLE's are being
configured and added every couple of days. So far, everything can
fit on one tape, even assuming level 0 on each DLE. As this
environment grows, that will not be the case.

Normally, Amanda's logic loves a large number of tapes. My office
LAN, manually changed, uses eighteen (1 DDS3 tapes. I have
followed this setup carefully for more than one year, and even as I
add DLE's, Amanda manages to get everything necessary on one tape
per backup. All is good.

With this current setup, nine (9) usable tapes, I wonder how best to
configure Amanda? Yes, we can manually swap out magazines as
necessary; but, we prefer that this site run as automagically as
possible. To wit, one magazine and nine tapes -- period.

How do you setup similar environments? What happens if a tape is,
of a sudden, bad when you need to restore?

What do you think?

If it was me, I'd probably get another magazine, put 7 tapes and a
cleaner in each, and have cron send you a reminder email to change
the magazine before you do anything else monday mornings. That would
take a dumpcycle=7, runspercycle=7, tapecycle=14.

Or goto dumpcycle=4,runspercycle=4,and tapecycle=9 and run it every
night and wear those tapes out in a hurry. But I'm not you, and atm
don't even have amanda running, I've gotta see if I can make it use
dvd-+-rw's one of these days. My last DDS2 changer's head died a
week or so back.

--
Cheers, Gene
There are 4 boxes to be used in defense of liberty.
Soap, ballot, jury, and ammo.
Please use in that order, starting now. -Ed Howdershelt, Author
Additions to this message made by Gene Heskett are Copyright 2004,
Maurice E. Heskett, all rights reserved.

* Gene Heskett <gene.heskett < at > verizon.net> [2004:07:10:17:45:42-0400] scribed:
On Saturday 10 July 2004 11:46, Michael D Schleif wrote:
<snip />
With this current setup, nine (9) usable tapes, I wonder how best to
configure Amanda? Yes, we can manually swap out magazines as
necessary; but, we prefer that this site run as automagically as
possible. To wit, one magazine and nine tapes -- period.

How do you setup similar environments? What happens if a tape is,
of a sudden, bad when you need to restore?

What do you think?

If it was me, I'd probably get another magazine, put 7 tapes and a
cleaner in each, and have cron send you a reminder email to change
the magazine before you do anything else monday mornings. That would
take a dumpcycle=7, runspercycle=7, tapecycle=14.

Or goto dumpcycle=4,runspercycle=4,and tapecycle=9 and run it every
night and wear those tapes out in a hurry. But I'm not you, and atm
don't even have amanda running, I've gotta see if I can make it use
dvd-+-rw's one of these days. My last DDS2 changer's head died a
week or so back.

Yes, I know that this is the ideal solution.

However, this is an office with naive computer users, and a bunch of
servers. Experience has taught me not to rely too heavily on
non-technical people to change tapes ;> It is more important that we
get a good backup _every_ night, than to have somebody forget to change
the magazine, and go without backups for several days ;<

Somebody must have already dealt with this scenario, and have a time
worn solution.

What do you think?

--
Best Regards,

mds
mds resource
877.596.8237
-
Dare to fix things before they break . . .
-
Our capacity for understanding is inversely proportional to how much
we think we know. The more I know, the more I know I don't know . . .
--

On Saturday 10 July 2004 18:12, Michael D Schleif wrote:
* Gene Heskett <gene.heskett < at > verizon.net> [2004:07:10:17:45:42-0400]
scribed:
On Saturday 10 July 2004 11:46, Michael D Schleif wrote:

<snip />

With this current setup, nine (9) usable tapes, I wonder how best
to configure Amanda? Yes, we can manually swap out magazines as
necessary; but, we prefer that this site run as automagically as
possible. To wit, one magazine and nine tapes -- period.

How do you setup similar environments? What happens if a tape
is, of a sudden, bad when you need to restore?

What do you think?

If it was me, I'd probably get another magazine, put 7 tapes and a
cleaner in each, and have cron send you a reminder email to change
the magazine before you do anything else monday mornings. That
would take a dumpcycle=7, runspercycle=7, tapecycle=14.

I'd goto this 2nd example in that case. Nother dumb Q: Does this
office have sufficient backup power to hold things long enough to at
least get there and do a gracefull shutdown? I do unless I'm gone to
town or some such.
Or goto dumpcycle=4,runspercycle=4,and tapecycle=9 and run it
every night and wear those tapes out in a hurry. But I'm not you,
and atm don't even have amanda running, I've gotta see if I can
make it use dvd-+-rw's one of these days. My last DDS2 changer's
head died a week or so back.

Yes, I know that this is the ideal solution.

However, this is an office with naive computer users, and a bunch of
servers. Experience has taught me not to rely too heavily on
non-technical people to change tapes ;> It is more important that
we get a good backup _every_ night, than to have somebody forget to
change the magazine, and go without backups for several days ;<

Somebody must have already dealt with this scenario, and have a time
worn solution.

What do you think?

Thats my $0.02 :-)

--
Cheers, Gene
There are 4 boxes to be used in defense of liberty.
Soap, ballot, jury, and ammo.
Please use in that order, starting now. -Ed Howdershelt, Author
Additions to this message made by Gene Heskett are Copyright 2004,
Maurice E. Heskett, all rights reserved.

On Sat, Jul 10, 2004 at 05:12:18PM -0500, Michael D Schleif wrote:
* Gene Heskett <gene.heskett < at > verizon.net> [2004:07:10:17:45:42-0400] scribed:
On Saturday 10 July 2004 11:46, Michael D Schleif wrote:
<snip />
With this current setup, nine (9) usable tapes, I wonder how best to
configure Amanda? Yes, we can manually swap out magazines as
necessary; but, we prefer that this site run as automagically as
possible. To wit, one magazine and nine tapes -- period.

How do you setup similar environments? What happens if a tape is,
of a sudden, bad when you need to restore?

What do you think?

If it was me, I'd probably get another magazine, put 7 tapes and a
cleaner in each, and have cron send you a reminder email to change
the magazine before you do anything else monday mornings. That would
take a dumpcycle=7, runspercycle=7, tapecycle=14.

Or goto dumpcycle=4,runspercycle=4,and tapecycle=9 and run it every
night and wear those tapes out in a hurry. But I'm not you, and atm
don't even have amanda running, I've gotta see if I can make it use
dvd-+-rw's one of these days. My last DDS2 changer's head died a
week or so back.

Yes, I know that this is the ideal solution.

However, this is an office with naive computer users, and a bunch of
servers. Experience has taught me not to rely too heavily on
non-technical people to change tapes ;> It is more important that we
get a good backup _every_ night, than to have somebody forget to change
the magazine, and go without backups for several days ;<

Somebody must have already dealt with this scenario, and have a time
worn solution.

Only for technical people like me. Who also can't be relied upon
to change magazines once a week and occasionally leave for a week.

I have enough holding disk for several weeks.

Then when I wake up from my 20 year sleep, I can run amflush
... several times.

But I would never plan on having less than 2 dumpcycles in my
tapecycle. I ususally try to have 3 or 4 dumpcycles/tapecycle.

End of included message <<<

--
Jon H. LaBadie jon < at > jgcomp.com
JG Computing
4455 Province Line Road (609) 252-0159
Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)