MEDIA
General User's Guide


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1.1 Media Librarian

MEDIA includes many features designed to simplify and automate all aspects of media management. Some of the most important highlights are listed below:

A comprehensive, on-line media database...

Support for all types of media...

A detached server process...

Easy to manage media pools...

Cluster and Network support...

User dependent media access and security...

Note

1 A more complete and sophisticated backup can be accomplished using MEDIA and the SCHEDULE automated backup system, available as a separate product.

2 Defining a SHADOW MEDIUM does not cause two media to be updated simultaneously. This is a convenience feature, to create two MEDIA Jobs automatically, both doing the same operation to both media.

1.2 Restore system

VAULT, Restore via search and Restore entire disk makes the restoring of lost or deleted files easier by allowing restoration from remote nodes and even remote PC's. The process is further simplified by the ease of use of the MOTIF Work Center .

  1. VAULT Saveset Manager allows users to easily identify and restore any files that have been copied onto off-line storage during normal archive, incremental and full backups.
    VAULT maintains a directory structured database that lists information about files that have been backed up. The main objective is to facilitate identifying what has been backed up and simplify the selective file restore process.
    The VAULT database contains an entry for every file. This entry gives the file storage location, when backed up and other attributes. Each backup can be individually set to add or not to add information to the database. The major features of VAULT are:
    An on-line directory database...
  2. Restore entire disk: The Restore entire disk program can be used to restore a disk because of errors, disk crash, relocation or any other reason. The latest full disk backup and latest incremental backups are combined to restore the disk to it's most recent state.
    Restore entire disk determines the volumes required for the recovery and restores up to the last backup that occured. The user may designate the target drive in case the recovery will apply to a different drive.
  3. Restore via search: The Restore via search facility allows the OPERATOR to create a detailed search criteria to locate needed files. By selecting such specific criteria as files names, saveset names and backup job, it is possible to locate files on any volume.

1.3 Backup management

BCKMGR allows users to create and submit backup jobs at regular intervals while designating the source disk and offline media for the job. Virtually any non backup job can be submitted as well using a list of DCL commands. The major features of BCKMGR are:

Complete control of job characteristics...

Auto submit cycles and full disk recovery...

1.4 Backup Modes

A backup is a copy of a file to off-line storage. Backups are important because they allow you to retrieve previous generations of a file even if it has been modified, damaged or deleted from your on-line directory. Because of the critical nature of many files, you need to copy the files to tape fairly often to:

The type of backup job is specified by the MANAGER when he creates the backup job. At most sites, the MANAGER will set up daily incremental backups and weekly and/or monthly full backups. Unloading backups might be scheduled daily, weekly, monthly or yearly depending on the site. Check with your MANAGER to learn the schedule of backups at your site.

In addition to standard Full and Incremental backups of on-line media, backups may be performed on remote nodes incorporating VMS clusters, PC networks and a variety of servers all to a central VMS device. Agent NT and Agent UNIX backup modes enable backups of remote nodes to remote backup devices.

Each BACKUP job in the BCKMGR system is defined by a set of attributes that describes what is to be backed up and how to do the back up. These attributes can be grouped as follows:

One of the key attributes is the backup mode number. The backup mode controls how the backup operation is performed. Several predefined modes are provided with the system. Others can easily be added by the user as needed.

Table 1-1 below lists the various predefined mode numbers.

Table 1-1 Backup modes
  Standard Scratch
Backup Type Incremental Full Incremental Full
On-line 2 3 4 5
Appending 13 14 15 16
Remote VMS 9 10 11 12
Remote PC 17 18 19 20
Remote NFS 21 22 23 24
Agent NT 25 25 25 25
Agent UNIX 26 26 26 26
Backup Type Incremental Full After Image Journal
RDB 6 7 8


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