You're making a fabulous case for BRMS. All of your objections below are
noted and accepted. Still, there are customers who choose for their own
reasons not to use BRMS (or any other tape management system for that
matter) and need to use the old style management techniques.
I have one customer that DOES have BRMS and still insists on using the
manual naming convention. He put the proper labels on the tapes but manages
BRMS to force the use of specific tapes on specific days. Too much like
work to me, but that's his choice.
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Rob
Berendt
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2020 10:51 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: BRMS with "alternative" media such as RDX, sticks, etc WAS:
Backup Tape rotation with Corona-virus
Used to use "sensible" naming. Same tape drive (library in sequential mode,
not random) used by multiple lpars. Had to load them in just the right
order, etc. You really weren't guaranteed that the sensible naming matched
what was really on the tape.
An alternative if you use "random" mode might be to set up your backup so
that it calculated the media needed and specified the volume SAVLIB
LIB(MYLIB) DEV(KDVLVTL) VOL(L01MON1) For lpar 01, Monday, Week 1
Still if a person cannot read BRMS recovery reports, or at least find the
volume names from the BRMS recovery reports, they have no business doing
your restore.
Some people are more confused by the "sensible" names. Was the Monday save
4am Monday or 11pm Monday? Big difference. Systems down. You cannot look
at WRKJOBSCDE. Person who schedules it is looking through rubble for their
child.
Is this Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 when selecting L01MON1? Idk, you're
supposed to check the calendar taped to their cubicle over there in that
pile of ashes which used to be our building.
Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600 Mail
to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2020 11:01 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion' <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: BRMS with "alternative" media such as RDX, sticks, etc WAS:
Backup Tape rotation with Corona-virus
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not
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Well, Rob, while I agree with your sentiments in the presence of BRMS,
without BRMS the volume naming trick is about the only way to track tapes
for humans. Of course the system could do it, but us dumb humans tend to
mess things up without orderly labeling.
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Rob
Berendt
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2020 6:25 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: BRMS with "alternative" media such as RDX, sticks, etc WAS:
Backup Tape rotation with Corona-virus
No, I disagree about the volume labeling. Do not use other than generic
names. You need to restore on a different system? Look it up on the system
you're coming from. That system is trash? Then look at your reports
generated by STRRCYBRM. These will tell you exactly what tape volumes you
need to restore your system to a new system and step by step how to do it.
We run the STRRCYBRM reports daily. They go straight to pdf and are
distributed to multiple geographically dispersed servers. Descriptive
volume names bring nothing to the party.
Can you use WRKOPTVOL or WRKLNK when those RDX or USB sticks are located in
your offsite storage facility?
Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600 Mail
to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Nathan
Andelin
Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 6:05 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: BRMS with "alternative" media such as RDX, sticks, etc WAS:
Backup Tape rotation with Corona-virus
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not
click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the
content is safe.
In regard to people not knowing how BRMS works, keep in mind that a lot of
IBM i shops don't use BRMS. I think this is particularly true for smaller
systems, which is the majority. That's not knocking BRMS, it's just
pointing out that many shops use standard IBM i commands for working with
and managing backup media, performing backups, and performing restores.
They often write their own CL commands and scripts, and possibly set
up menu options to perform such operations rather than purchase BRMS.
In regard to media labels, I suppose your comments pertain to physical
labels, volume names, and in the case of optical devices, the optical file
names that might be attached to a particular SAVE operation. While BRMS may
manage that for users, what happens when you want to restore something on a
system that doesn't have BRMS installed, or you don't have the BRMS
database?
I would suggest that an appropriate naming convention would help a restore
operation in that case. And in the case of scripts that save to optical
media such as RDX or USB stick, users can WRKOPTVOL or WRKLNK to navigate
and drill down to see what is stored on the media. For example:
/tue/iasp1/mvempdb
might refer to LIBRARY MVEMPDB from IASP1, saved last Tuesday.
In other words, volume and optical file labels can be handy for restore
operations.
Another nice feature of optical file labels is that SAVE operations can
replace content that has the same label, as appending new content to the
end of a volume. Thus you eliminate the need for deduplication services.
For example, SAVE operations for this Tuesday might replace saved content
from last Tuesday.
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