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Conference decwet::networker

Title:NetWorker
Notice:kits - 12-14, problem reporting - 41.*, basics 1-100
Moderator:DECWET::RANDALL.com::lenox
Created:Thu Oct 10 1996
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:750
Total number of notes:3361

560.0. "UNIX/NT tape compatibility and duplication" by DECWET::ONO (Software doesn't break-it comes broken) Tue Apr 08 1997 14:43

I have a customer who currently has a NetWorker V4.2B server on a
AlphaServer 2100 4/200 Digital UNIX system with a TZ877 (soon to
be upgraded to TZ887).  This system is currently backing up a 
mixed bag of UNIX and NT systems.

He is planning to either

  1) Add a second TZ887 to the Digital UNIX system, or

  2) Set up another NetWorker server on a Windows NT system.

He has a couple of questions in order to figure out what 
direction to go:

  1) Are the tape formats identical between the NetWorker servers 
  on Digital UNIX and Windows NT?

  2) Is there a way to duplicate tapes on one server so they can be 
  moved to the other server and scannered in?  Could he:
    a) Clone the volume (he has heard that cloning is slow) then 
       remove it from the media database, or
    b) Use dd to copy tape-to-tape,
  then move it to the other system, scanner it to get the index
  entries and go on from there. 

Has anyone tried this?

Wes
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
560.1DECWET::LENOXPass the popcorn, on with the show.Tue Apr 08 1997 15:3610
if tape formats aren't not the same, there is a bug.
Legato uses the same tape format on all servers for
this reason.

NT/UNIX tape format compatibility has been tested
between NT Alpha and Digital UNIX.

From there, the problem reduces to one of transferring
tapes.
560.2DECWET::RWALKERRoger Walker - Media ChangersTue Apr 08 1997 17:0015
	Cloning is the only safe way to make a copy of a tape.  Any
	non-NetWorker tool may end up loosing some of the data off the
	end or have other problems.  We can not support tapes
	copied with another utility and I would not trust them
	with my data.

	If they only need the tape on the second server if the
	first server is out for a long time then use mminfo 
	to make paper logs of what's on what tape each day.
	These print outs can then be used to find the needed tapes
	for scanning if a critical recovery is needed before the 
	failed server can be fixed.

	In general I think they would find it more useful to have one
	server with two drives then two servers.