Archive spanning tapes...

Hi everyone, I'm in a bit of a predicament and was wondering if anyone here can help me. Perhaps this is more of a Unix question, but there may be someone here doing somehing similar to what I'm looking for. First the details: Running PeopleSoft on Informix 7.31UC2 with HP/UX 10.20 Tapeblk is set to 128 I've got a script that performs a level zero archive (ontape -s -L 0) twice a day. We back up two different ifx servers, so we have our backup jobs go to a single autochanger (DDS2 tapes). One of our databases is rather large (by our standards, of course) and our tape is now getting full, which causes our automated scripts to loop, and the archive never finishes (because we never get a chance to switch tapes). BTW, it's a Perl script. What I need to know is, does anyone here have any hints or tips as to how I can have a scipt (Perl or otherwise) detect when the tape is full and therefore switch to the next tape, or go to a different drive? How do you people with massive databases deal with this without having to constantly monitor the ontape process? Is an ontape to a disk a viable option? Thank you all for your time and responses. Ben Guerard Napa County -- to reply: drumzspace (AT) yahoo (DOT) com -- to reply: drumzspace (AT) yahoo (DOT) com check out my music @ Soul Pagoda: http://www.mp3.com/soulpagoda Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

drumzspace wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > I'm in a bit of a predicament and was wondering if anyone here can help > me. Perhaps this is more of a Unix question, but there may be someone > here doing somehing similar to what I'm looking for. > > First the details: > Running PeopleSoft on Informix 7.31UC2 with HP/UX 10.20 > Tapeblk is set to 128 > > I've got a script that performs a level zero archive (ontape -s -L 0) > twice a day. We back up two different ifx servers, so we have our > backup jobs go to a single autochanger (DDS2 tapes). > > One of our databases is rather large (by our standards, of course) and > our tape is now getting full, which causes our automated scripts to > loop, and the archive never finishes (because we never get a chance to > switch tapes). BTW, it's a Perl script. > > What I need to know is, does anyone here have any hints or tips as to > how I can have a scipt (Perl or otherwise) detect when the tape is full > and therefore switch to the next tape, or go to a different drive? How Have the perl script read and parse the prompts from ontape and when it asks for a new tape send a message to the autochanger. > do you people with massive > databases deal with this without having to constantly monitor the 24x7 operators, lots of them, to constantly monitor the ontape process. > ontape process? Is an ontape to a disk a viable option? Worse since ontape will not write more than 2GB to a disk file. Art S. Kagel

>Worse since ontape will not write more than 2GB to a disk file. What he (or she) actually asked was "Is an ontape to a disk a viable option?" And the answer is "Yes" - or at least "Maybe". It's perfectly possible to use ontape to archive to disk beyond 2GByte, provided you write to raw disk. And, with lvm, this is simple on HP-UX. Neil

You might want to start looking at "onbar" as well. Rudy drumzspace wrote: > Hi everyone, > What I need to know is, does anyone here have any hints or tips as to > how I can have a scipt (Perl or otherwise) detect when the tape is full > and therefore switch to the next tape, or go to a different drive? How > do you people with massive > databases deal with this without having to constantly monitor the > ontape process? Is an ontape to a disk a viable option? > > Thank you all for your time and responses. > Ben Guerard > Napa County > check out my music @ Soul Pagoda: http://www.mp3.com/soulpagoda > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy.

You should look into using onbar for your automated backups. ontape works well if the data can fit all onto one tape. Plus, with ontape you need another tape drive if you want to do continuous logging. onbar solves this for you by automating both your log backups as well as your archives. And yes, onbar can backup to disk if you don't already have a tape library. Your version 7.31 does come with onbar as well as an imbedded storage manager (ISM) which handles your backups for you. If cost isn't an issue, upgrade to a third party storage manager such as Legato or Veritas. Your life will be significantly less stressful when you start using onbar instead of ontape. Can't help you on the perl scripting though... drumzspace wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'm in a bit of a predicament and was wondering if anyone here can help > me. Perhaps this is more of a Unix question, but there may be someone > here doing somehing similar to what I'm looking for. > > First the details: > Running PeopleSoft on Informix 7.31UC2 with HP/UX 10.20 > Tapeblk is set to 128 > > I've got a script that performs a level zero archive (ontape -s -L 0) > twice a day. We back up two different ifx servers, so we have our > backup jobs go to a single autochanger (DDS2 tapes). > > One of our databases is rather large (by our standards, of course) and > our tape is now getting full, which causes our automated scripts to > loop, and the archive never finishes (because we never get a chance to > switch tapes). BTW, it's a Perl script. > > What I need to know is, does anyone here have any hints or tips as to > how I can have a scipt (Perl or otherwise) detect when the tape is full > and therefore switch to the next tape, or go to a different drive? How > do you people with massive > databases deal with this without having to constantly monitor the > ontape process? Is an ontape to a disk a viable option? > > Thank you all for your time and responses. > Ben Guerard > Napa County > -- > to reply: drumzspace (AT) yahoo (DOT) com > > -- > to reply: drumzspace (AT) yahoo (DOT) com > > check out my music @ Soul Pagoda: http://www.mp3.com/soulpagoda > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. -- Phillip Tien Database Administrator Whole Foods Market, Inc. Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door.

Art S. Kagel wrote: > > > Is an ontape to a disk a viable option? > > Worse since ontape will not write more than 2GB to a disk file. Really? I thought that was a bug that was fixed. June -- june_t@hotmail.com Living on Snickers bars in San Mateo