There are two methods for automating tape drive cleaning using Netbackup. They are frequency based automation and alert based automation. If you choose to be proactive you can chose frequency based cleaning. If you don’t want to over-clean or under-clean your tape drives then you can choose to use alert based automation. Following are examples of how to setup both types of automation.
Frequency Based Cleaning – Setup
There are Two Steps For Setting Up Frequency Based Cleaning.
- The “Cleaning Frequency (in hours) for each tape drive should be properly set to an appropriate number of hours based on your environment. This could be 360 hours or 1000 hours or any number. I don’t make that suggestion here. Use either the Java Console GUI or the command line to enter the frequency in hours. The command line syntax follows and uses drive “IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.005” and “1000” hours as an example:
/usr/openv/volmgr/bin/tpclean –F IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.005 1000
- A barcode rule must be setup so that NetBackup can know if there are cleaning tapes in the library and determine the remaining cleanings. Don’t use the GUI if you can avoid it to because it gets ugly. But if you must use the GUI the barcode rules setup is hidden in the inventory GUI under advanced options. The following command line command is preferred and can be run to affect the setup of the barcode rule. Afterwards, any new tapes inserted into the library with a barcode starting with CLN will be assigned to the “None” Volume pool, assigned 25 cleanings, made media type “HC3_CLN” and given the description “Cleaning tape”.
vmrule -add CLN HC3_CLN None 25 “Cleaning tape”
Frequency Based Cleaning – How it Works
When the accumulated mount time exceeds the time specified for cleaning frequency, drive cleaning occurs if the following are true:
If the drive is in a robotic library that supports drive cleaning
If a cleaning cartridge is defined in that robotic library
If the cleaning cartridge is compatible with the drive that needs to be cleaned
If the cleaning cartridge has a nonzero number of cleanings that remain
NetBackup resets the mount time when the drive is cleaned.
Drives can also be cleaned from the Device Monitor.
Alert Based Cleaning – Setup
Yikes this section is blank. I’ll add the content later. Hopefully you wanted to setup frequency based cleaning and you have all of the information you need. If not, leave a comment and I’ll add the instruction here.
“tpclean” Command
Runing the “tpclean –L” command from the master server will provide the information regarding whether or not a drive needs cleaning and what the accumulated mount time is. In the following example you can see that drive IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.008 needs cleaning. It should be automatically cleaned after 360 hours of accumulated mount time but as you can see it still has not been cleaned. The issue may be there are no appropriate cleaning tapes in the library or there are zero remaining cleanings. Correcting this situation will result in the drive being automatically cleaned.
bash-2.05$ sudo ./tpclean -L
Password:
Drive Name Type Mount Time Frequency Last Cleaned Comment
********** **** ********** ********* **************** *******
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.006 hcart3* 315.9 360 08:55 06/07/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.007 hcart3* 0.0 360 11:53 06/28/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.008 hcart3* 526.4 360 17:14 05/21/2011 NEEDS CLEANING
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.009 hcart3* 303.0 360 09:02 06/09/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD4.000 hcart3* 318.4 360 12:55 06/07/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD4.001 hcart3* 331.9 360 05:04 06/08/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.000 hcart3* 287.0 360 09:46 06/03/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.001 hcart3* 286.9 360 12:59 06/02/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.002 hcart3* 263.4 360 21:19 06/04/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.003 hcart3* 199.7 360 02:33 06/02/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.004 hcart3* 268.4 360 01:43 06/07/2011
IBM.ULTRIUM-TD3.005 hcart3* 153.7 360 13:53 06/04/2011
-- Thiers Family -- 
Actually, I’m using Alert Based Cleaning in my environment, so any information you could provide would be much appreciated.