I do not think I am making my issue clear. The problem is that when there is
a request to mount an additional tape it only appears on the console. If you
are not constantly monitoring the console or you have many console messages
displayed you will miss this request. At this point the backup will just
stay in the wait state until you mount a new scratch tape. I am trying to
make this process as automated as possible (no excuses as to why the backup
is still running). I guess one answer is to keep doing a showproc on the job
to see if it is getting any cpu time or have glance/sos running to see if
the job is getting cpu time. Anything else I am missing?

Thank you,

Al Nizzardini
Technical Consultant
Computer Design & Integration LLC
696 Route 46 West
Teterboro, NJ 07608
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
T:  201-931-1420 x252
F:  201-931-0101
P: 973-205-3922


-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Werth [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 5:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Turbostore question


John Burke <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> I agree that two (or more, we use five) tape drives are better than one;
> however, rather than a sequential backup (still takes as long) or a
parallel
> backup (too complex when a restore is required) why not two separate,
> independent, backup jobs?
>
> We actually do five simultaneous backups to five tape drives. The obvious
> advantage this has over a sequential backup is the time factor. The
obvious
> advantage over a parallel backup is ease of restore. Perhaps less obvious,
> since the backups are independent, if one fails for any reason, we still
> have a good backup of 4/5's of our system
>
> The downside to this scheme is you have to manually determine how to split
> your system and periodically monitor how much is backed up by each
process;
> however, it has served us well for many years and once set up requires
only
> minimal attention.

Exactly. My assumption is that this is a single tape backup that was
spilling over onto a second tape. The *easiest* thing to do (besides just
manually changing tapes) without introducing other complexities would be a
sequential backup. Anything else would require deeper analysis and an
overhaul of the backup procedure.

Doug.

Doug Werth                             Beechglen Development Inc.
[log in to unmask]                               Cincinnati, Ohio