NDMP jobs are waiting for media and free space is available on other devices (4046477)

Date - JUL-2009
Affected Product & Version - NVBU All
Affected Module & Version - All that use NDMP protocol
OS Version - All
Application Information - N/A


Symptoms:
NDMP jobs are in 'waiting for media' and the following applies:
- The NDMP jobs are set to target 'any media' on 'any device'.
- There is plenty of free tapes and drives available on another device.
- The job used all possible space on the first device and hangs instead of using the free media on additional devices.
- The drive used appears as 'Locked by Session Soft' in NetVault Device Management.
- All other drives on the other devices are idle.

This is a known limitation of using the NDMP protocol.
Once an NDMP Transfer is initiated between a Filer and a Drive, the source and the target cannot change in the middle of a transfer.
So all APM jobs that use the NDMP protocol to Backup / Restore cannot continue on a different drive.

NetVault cannot terminate the process started with the original device and spawn a new one on a different device,
unless the backup is performed with the regular File System plugin.
Currently, you have to make sure your NDMP jobs can be contained within a single device unit.

Also be aware that VaultDR and Netware Thin Client Plugin jobs use the NDMP protocol for transfer.
If they do manage to span on different devices, this could potentially compromise their recoverability later,
as this same issue could apply when restoring data residing on different devices.