Job Monitor
The Job Monitor is the primary Tools panel and will most likely become a
familiar site to the manager of a larger BRU Server environment. Since staging allows many backup operations to occur at the same time, you can monitor the status of any job by selecting it from the listbox and clicking the Attach button. In fact, you may monitor multiple jobs at the same time. For each job that you select to monitor, a new Job Monitor window will open. Any of these Monitor windows may be closed without affecting the monitored job.
The Upstage Manager is used to define and schedule jobs that transfer staged backups to your tape subsystem. When a staged job is upstaged, it is placed onto tape as a standard BRU Server archive and may then be accessed like any normal tape archive.
Upstage Manager
To create and schedule an upstage job, enter a name for the job in the text portion of the Job combobox. Select the destination and mode (Ask, Append, or Overwrite). Next select the user or <All Users> whose data will be upstaged and enter an email address for notification. It is a good idea to include the user whose data is being upstaged since staged restore are much faster than tape- based restores.
To complete the job definition, set the verify checkbox (we always recommend that tape backups be verified), whether the tape should be ejected upon completion (standalone drives only), and the frequency of the job if you are scheduling it as a repeating job. Refer to Chapter 2 for more information on scheduling jobs.
Tape Import Manager
The Tape Import Manager is used to introduce tape from outside of your BRU Server environment so that they can be accessed for restore. If the tapes were created with another BRU Server system, leave the Slow Scan checkbox unset. If the tapes are from a BRU or BRU-Pro environment, set the Slow Scan checkbox.
In the event that the Import scan determines that the tape is missing the catalogs or that the catalogs located are corrupt, it will automatically switch to the slow scan mode if you have not set the checkbox.
If you are using a library, set the starting and ending slots to include in the scan and click the Scan button. The scan progress will be displayed in a Monitor window.
System Settings
The System Settings tool allows you to configure settings that are sometimes better defined by a human for a given system rather than through an automatic process.
Eject Timeout: How many seconds to allow for a tape to be ejected from a tape drive before checking the status of the eject.
Eject Timeout Needed: How many seconds to wait after checking the status of the eject before declaring an unload error.
Online Timeout: How many seconds to wait for a tape to become ready after loading before declaring a load error.
Stage Directory: The disk location on the local system assigned for writing staged backups. This may be any location including external Firewire or USB drives (look in /Volumes for the proper pathname).
Max Stage Age: The maximum number of days a staged backup is left on the stage disk. This setting overrides a user’s age setting.
Job History Retention: The number of days that a job’s completion report is kept in the database.
Device Configuration
The Device Configuration tool allows you to both query a device setting and make changes to its settings. Settings such as the Block Size can
dramatically affect the performance of a tape device. You can also use this to disable a device that will be temporarily removed from a system such that the configuration settings are retained and no errors are reported during operations If you have a cleaning cartridge that is not recognized as such by your barcode reader (As in the above figure), or you don’t have a barcode reader, you can assign a permanent slot as a cleaning cartridge and the tape in that slot will not be included in any backup and restore operations.
The checkboxes in the lower portion of the screen represent all of the available slots in the selected library. By default, they should all be unchecked. Once you have defined your Destinations under the Data Manager, any unassigned slots may be selected on this panel. Selecting unassigned slots will assign them to the “Free Pool.”
The Free Pool consists of tapes that are not permanently assigned to any Destination. In the event that a Destination fills all of its assigned tapes, an available tape from the Free Pool will be added to extend the Destination’s capacity. Once assigned, the Free Pool tape becomes a member of that Destination’s assigned slots.
SCSI Hardware Scan
The SCSI Hardware Scan tool is used to rescan your system hardware for available tape drives and libraries. While the tool is referred to as a SCSI scan, it applies to SCSI, Fibre-Channel, and Firewire devices as well.
Lock Manager
The Lock Manager allows you to manually monitor locks that are placed on devices by the BRU Server software. There are two types of locks – Exclusive and Shared. Exclusive locks are assigned to a single task such as a backup or restore from a tape drive or the movement of a tape from a slot to a drive. A Shared lock would normally be assigned for read access to a database record.
In the event that a lock becomes stuck because of a system problem – tape malfunction, SCSI error, or other unexpected problem – the Lock Manager will allow you to select the errant lock and release, or Unlock it.
To Unlock a lock, select the lock in the listbox and click the Unlock button. So not use this feature for experimentation as improperly released locks can thoroughly confuse the BRU Server operations.