Return
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Title
Managing Amazon Glacier media in NetVault -
Description
What is the procedure to load, eject, blank, and make a tape reusable when using Amazon Glacier? -
Cause
Amazon use the Gateway-VTL as a on-premise disk cache for later archival to Glacier. The Gateway-VTL shows up on Windows Device Manager as a physical tape library with items listed under "Medium Changer Devices" and "Tape Drives". Therefore, on NetVault, the device should be added as a physical "Tape library/media changer". -
Resolution
Although the VTL is listed as a physical drive, the procedures to manage media will be similar to the ones used with virtual tape libraries with the following considerations:
- On NetVault, signal the library to open the door before ejecting or loading any virtual tape. After managing the tapes using Glacier console, signal NetVault to close the door to refresh the content of the library slots.
- Blanking a tape with a Glacier "Retrieved" status is not possible because the tape is write-protected when it was previously moved from the Gateway-VTL to the Archive.
- Similar to the previous point, to be able to reuse a tape, all savesets on the tape should be expired or deleted, and the media should never be removed from the Gateway-VTL for archival purposes. For instance, all savesets on the tape expired while the media was sent to the Archive. On the NetVault Database, the savesets information will be removed upon expiration and the tape will be marked as reusable. When the tape is reloaded on the Gateway-VTL and NetVault, it will show as re-usable, but the tape will be write-protected rendering it useless in NetVault.