I want to be able to see the exact size of the data for each backup job so i know exactly how many tapes i need.
And also be able to see how much spare storage is left on the tapes
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For a quick view of tapes, in the left window, expand to view media in library, then you can right-click on each tape, go to properties, and in there, you can see the status of each tape. You can see what backup jobs have been written to that tape, and view the size of each job (for planning future backups), you can also see how much space is used on the tape, and how much is still available.
no prob thanks
just before i close the question or do i need to post another one has anyone any good tips or help understanding retention in commvault
we back up 1 tb per day on 2 x 800gig tapes and every day we have to delete the contents of the tapes before that nights backup kicks off, if we dont we get a no more spares error.
Should we be having to delete the contents of the tapes every day
It's a function of how much archived data you want to be able to keep at any given time. It's a very bad model to have to delete the previous days back up each day, that's a poisonouns snake waiting to bite you. If they're 800GB tapes, I'm assuming this is LTO4, or is that 800GB compressed?
1TB is a lot of data to be writing to tape every day; are you using incremental backups, or just full backups each day? Maybe you do, indeed, need to write 1TB of data each day, but that sure is a lot. If you do need to write that much each day, I recommend moving to a 24 tape autoloader, someting like the Dell PowerVault. Then get three sets of 23 tapes, with a cleaning tape to live in the autoloader all the time, with commvault configured to auto-clean the drive whenever it determines that it's needed. I set up mine with thresholds, it cleans after a certain number of usage hours whether it needs it or not.
My network(s) involve 43TB of data of various kinds; static files, MOSS, CRM, Exchange 2003 / 2007, MS SQL 2000 / 2005, MS Dynamics, Oracle Financial Manager, ADP. I run a full backup of all that data once a month, with differentials every Sat and incrementals each other day. I wind up with about 80GB backed up each night, I have two sets of 15 tapes (I have a 16 tape autoloader), revolving, on any given day, I've got 55 days of data backed up. I perform quarterly full archives and those tapes go to Iron Mountain and live there forever. Monthly test restores of all SQL DBs and CRM / MOSS FEs.
When you delete the data, are you right-clicking tapes and selecting "delete contents", and then filling out the "erase and reuse media" prompt, or are you performing a data aging at the commcell level? I only ask because 1TB written to tape each day is a TON; Bank of America might not be writing that much to tape each day, that's an awful lot.
Also check SQL backups. If you're backing up MS SQL server using commvault, it's not truncating the T-log files for you, you'll need to do that manually. It could be that you've got hundreds of GB of SQL t-log files that are worthless once a backup has been run, but are just growing larger and larger until you run a backup using the sql software, or manually truncate those files. You may wonder how I know this so well.....
We are using an MSL Storage Works 4048 Tape Library but only inserting 2 x tapes
The tapes are 800gig uncompressed
The bulk of the data is around 22 virtual servers, file server, exchange server and 2 x sql servers doing full backups every night with the file server doing a differential backup as it alone is over 600gig
When i delete the data i do indeed right click and select delete contents and then fill out "erase and reuse media" which i think then messes up the reports and goodness knows what else.
What do you suggest as a better way forward
Without knowing your organisations data requirements, it is hard to comment on what the best way forward for you is. However, I do think that it would be beneficial for you to first work out exactly what your data protection requirements are, and then set about customising the Commvault to meet those requirements.
Once you have worked out your data protection requirements, the first thing I would recommend is that instead of doing a full backup of all your servers that you start doing incrementals through the week, and fulls backup on the Weekend - this will massively reduce the size of your overnight backups!
I would also recommend you start using Incrementals for the File Server as well, as I personally think it is a much better option than Differentials - and again will help reduce the size of your overnights.
I would also recommend that you look into creating a a few storage policies and setting each of them up with retention settings appropriate to the data they will be storing - for example a storage policy for your user mailbox data and file data, which you may wish to retain for longer, and another storage policy for file system data which doesn't need to be retained for as long.
And lastly, I would recommend that you fill the library with tapes, and let Commvault manage which ones it uses.
If you need help through any stage of configuring Commvault, let me know, I'm always happy to help.
Out of curiosity, why are you only 2 tapes into the library?
For that much data, I'd recommend first of all filling out your library - fill it with tapes, leaving one slot dedicated to a cleaning tape.
(1) Full backup of all data once each month
(2) Differential Backups of all data once each week
(3) Incremental backups of all data every day that you're not running a full or differential
Instead of just deleting contents from the tapes, you should be doing a data aging in commvault. Right-click on the commserve (very top item in your tree list on the left), and select "all tasks\data aging". Or "data aging" could be alone and not in the "all tasks" menu, depending on your sp level. Perform data aging and set it to run immediately. Won't take long at all, then your tapes will be good.
But definitely add more tapes. Have at least 2 sets of rotating tapes and don't age the data on a set until the other set is full and you've stored them offiste.
Business Accounts
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by: Psy053Posted on 2009-10-12 at 22:00:06ID: 25557060
You can run a Job Summary Report in order to see the amount of data backed up for a specific agent.
When running the Job Summary Report you can probably accept all default options except for:
Selection Tab: Remove tick from Failure Reason
Options Tab: Add tick to Size Unit, and set "Show size in" to MB
Time Range Tab: You can leave this at 24 hours or increase it to capture jobs that don't run daily.
You can run a Media Information Report in order to see how much data is on a Tape.
When running the Media Information Report you can probably accept all default options except for:
Libraries Tab: You may wish to exclude particular libraries, or exclude media inside or outside of the library.
Storage Policies Tab: You may wish to exclude particular Storage Policies or Copies
Time Range Tab: You may wish to limit the results to tapes that have been written recently etc