NVBU VTL overview
Some questions and recommendations in creating a Virtual tape Library (VTL) within NetVault Backup.
You can also get more information from our administration guide on Virtual Tape Libraries:
NetVault Backup – Administration Guide
https://support.quest.com/search?k=netvault+backup+administration+guide
Setting up VTL. It used to be recommended to setup VTL into 1TB chunks.
1. Is this still recommended to have it split into 1TB VTLs? Or can we allocate it as a single VTL - 12TB
2. Is there a preferred FileSystem Type for VTL?
Answer; You can now create larger VTL’s So a 12TB total size on disk can be utilized. Taking the VTL and the number of slots you wish to use and devide this into the total capacity to arrive at the media size for each slot. There is no preffered File System in creating a VTL.
Currently we set our VTL tape size to be the same as our LTO tape capacity.
3. Is this still the recommendation (i.e. the new system should have the VTL tape size be the same as the LTO tape or is that no longer recommended?
Answer; This is fine. Ideally “I” recommend large Media size for VTL media, lower number of slots per VTL. Create a VTL like a small workgroup Physical Library. 20-30 slots max divided into the total 12TB size to give you each slot size. This will all depend upon the size of the total storage you have to create the VTL upon.
In the old days they had a command line script to initialize a VTL.
4. Is the recommendation now to set it up with the server interface?
Answer; Yes, it creates a VTL failry fast with the newer version of NVBU. No need to use a script to create a VTL. NVBU has internal scripts to create the VTL based upon the size and number of drives/slots you wish to create.
5. Do we still recommend to write to VTL first before writing the full backups to tape?
Answe;r Typically this is why you create the VTL, Disk to Disk first then later off to tape for offsite purposes.
6. Is there any change to best practices for grouping media and setting up labels? They were currently grouping and labelling if it’s a workstation or server environment.
Answer; I typically have my customers if using group labels to create a Full group and a Inc or Diff group depending upon what they are choosing besides a Full. Maybe another Tape Media Group called Offsite.
