Explanation of how Virtual Media Capacity is managed on a NetVault Server
The virtual media license administration works by reconciling the total amount of virtual media capacity listed within the NetVault media manager database on the server against the amount licensed for.
The NetVault server has a pool of license that is depleted dynamically when blank virtual tapes are labelled and their capacity is registered within the media manager database. Blanking a tape restores its capacity to the available pool.
The tape capacity is registered for all virtual tapes managed by that server regardless of the location of the virtual tape drive or library e.g. locally on the server or through a smartclient.
If a virtual library or tape drive is removed and deleted from the configuration managed by the NetVault server the virtual tapes remain registered within the NetVault media database and the associated virtual tape license capacity remains occupied.
To recover the license capacity:
- 'BLANK' all of the Virtual Media within the virtual device prior removal. The tapes MUST be BLANKED to return the capacity to the free pool.
- After the old Virtual Library has been removed, either manually 'Remove' the media in the Explore Storage section.
This allows a user to create a virtual device of any size but will only be able to use (label and write to) tapes up to the capacity licensed for.
The default behaviour of NetVault is to use blank tapes in favour of tapes holding expired backups that have been marked for re-use. If there are no blank tapes available and the media targeting options specify so then the tapes marked for re-use will be overwritten.
If a virtual library is created with a larger capacity than licensed for blank tapes will be labelled and written as targeted by the backup jobs however once the virtual media capacity has been exceeded and an attempt is made to use a blank tape that exceeds the license capacity the following symptoms are generated -
- the error message 'Exceeding license for total Virtual Media capacity' will be listed within the log
- the backup job will be suspended in the state of 'waiting for media' and no further backup jobs will be able to write to the virtual library while it holds blank tapes that exceed the license amount and all used media space is exhausted.
To workaround this situation existing tapes marked for re-use within the library will have to be manually 'blanked' to reclaim the license capacity required.
For this reason we recommend creating virtual devices of a size that conforms to the media capacity licensed.
