Non bar code reading tape drive... 1

[B14speedfreak]

Hi all,

Thanks in advance for any posts/suggestions.

One of our legacy boxes tape drive decided to die recently (apparently it was a plundge motor problem) an L9 which reads barcodes. Unfortunatly for the short term at least, we have a dell datavault thing. The problem is that it doesn't read any bar codes on the tapes.

Is this a problem for Netbackup? I also seem to be having some issues with Veritas labelling the tapes. Does anyone know how Veritas manages the tapes when it cannot read the bar codes?

Thanks for any help,



B14... aka... Marky Mark... the frozen monkey in the server room...

 

[comtec17]

If there are no barcodes or barcode reader it will only manage the tapes by placing an A##### onto the media. NetBackup media manager cannot really manage existing tapes with Barcodes on them if the barcodes were not actually labeled on each tape as well.

 

[johnny99]

You should try to make a physical inventory of the library and see if that will try to read the tapelabels on the tapes.

/johnny

 

[B14speedfreak]

Not quite sure what you mean by that...

...we label the tapes on the outside, do you mean re-labelling them after the inventory is updated?

Thanks,


B14... aka... Marky Mark... the frozen monkey in the server room...

 

[johnny99]

The tapes all have a label on them called VOL1 I think (from the good old mainframe days) that has the volume serial number (char(6))

NBU will normally use the barcode when you make an inventory, but when it mounts the tape it also does a check on the VOL1 label to check that it is the tape it is expecting to get from the mount request.

Using the VMPHYINV command you can get NBU to mount each tape in the library and read the VOL1 label and base the inventory on that.

I haven't used it very often, so I could be wrong.

The process will be slow because NBU has to mount and read each tape, but it could be it will solve your problem.

If you only have one tapelibrary attached to your server the command should be "vmphyinv -rn 0"

/johnny

 

[B14speedfreak]

Hi Johnny,

Thanks for the replay I will look into this.

Thanks,



B14... aka... Marky Mark... the frozen monkey in the server room...

 

[comtec17]

The only way that the volser will be on the tape is if it was put there when the tapes were purchased with barcodes on them. These days the volsers are the barcodes, sad, but true.

 

[johnny99]

That one I don't understand.

The only tapes I buy with barcode labels are 9940B. LTO and DLT tapes I always get without and label them myself (I buy the labels somewhere else then SUN/STK)

And I also have barcode labels using char(8) and then use a volser of char(6) and then handle that part using barcode rules.

So I can't see how you can be right that volser is only together with the barcodes when you buy the tapes.
I would say that what bplabel does is to write the volser you tell it to write.

/johnny