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The MediaAgent manages the transmission of data between clients and backup media. There can be more than one MediaAgent within a CommCell.
The software supports MediaAgents on several Operating Systems, including support for MediaAgents in a clustered environment. (See System Requirements - MediaAgent for a list of supported MediaAgents and their requirements. See Support Information - Installation for information on cluster support for MediaAgents.)
See MediaAgent Deployment for information on installing the MediaAgent software.
Once installed, MediaAgents are displayed in the CommCell Browser as a sub-level under Storage Resources. You can perform several operations from the MediaAgent level and modify the properties associated with a MediaAgent. These are described in the following sections.
You can view the log files generated by a MediaAgent. The files that reside on a given computer may differ depending on the role of the computer in the CommCell (CommServe, MediaAgent, Client). A CommServe computer contains only the CommServe log files. A computer that is both a CommServe and a MediaAgent contains the log files of both entities. See Log Files for a detailed explanation of viewing log files.
You can scan the MediaAgent for any new hardware, and changes to existing hardware configurations, from the CommCell Console. This triggers a device detection at the operating system level for all corresponding CommCell computers, and reports the latest hardware configurations to the MediaAgent. See Scan a MediaAgent for Hardware Changes for step-by-step instructions.
This option allows you to install updates from the CommServe Update Cache or a designated update cache on a remote client if multicache configuration is set up for use. See Install Updates to Specific Clients/MediaAgent for step-by-step instructions to install updates.
To uninstall a MediaAgent from a CommServe, use the uninstall procedure as described in Uninstalling the MediaAgent.
If the uninstall fails to cleanup the MediaAgent information from the CommServe, use the De-configure option. Note that the De-configure option will not remove the files and registry entries associated with this MediaAgent.
The De-configure option performs the following tasks:
For a detailed explanation on de-configuring MediaAgents, see Deconfiguring Agents.
Alerts allow you to set e-mail notifications to MediaAgent related events. For a detailed explanation of Alerts, see Alerts and Monitoring.
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Do not use spaces when specifying a new name for the Client. |
Information includes the MediaAgent's operating system and platform. If necessary you can use the description field to record additional information about the MediaAgent. Click on NDMP Properties to edit the details of the NDMP Server host filer.
This feature allows you to set the maximum number of concurrent read/write operations to the MediaAgent. This value controls the maximum number of data streams that can be managed by the MediaAgent. See Set the Maximum Number of Parallel Data Transfer Operations for a MediaAgent for step-by-step instructions.
The default number of concurrent read/write operations to a MediaAgent is 25. This value can be set between 1 and 75. If Optimize for Concurrent LAN Backup option is enabled from the Control tab, then the default is set to 100 and this value can be set to a maximum of 200 (only on Windows and Unix).
The integrity of data protection operations can be ensured by enabling Data Integrity Validation at the MediaAgent. Data Integrity Validation can be used to verify the data stored in the media as well as the data transferred over network. See Data Integrity Validation for more information.
The following options for controlling the MediaAgent is provided:
You can enable or disable a MediaAgent. When a MediaAgent is disabled, it is not used, even if it is physically available. (See Enable (or Disable) a MediaAgent for step-by-step instructions.)
MediaAgents and data protection and recovery operations for clients can be enabled or disabled in bulk with the EnableDisableComputers command line utility in the Resource Pack. The tool can be applied to all MediaAgents and clients, or for a select targeted group.
The status of the MediaAgent is displayed to indicate whether the MediaAgent software is online or offline, and if offline, the reason for the offline status is also displayed.
The system checks for the status of the MediaAgent and updates the information based on the values established in the LAN-Free MediaAgent liveliness check interval in Minutes and LAN MediaAgent liveliness check interval in Minutes options from the Media Management Configuration (Service Configuration) dialog box available in the Control Panel.
You can enable this option when you wish to perform routine or other maintenance tasks on devices. This option is available in the MediaAgent, Library and Drive levels and you can appropriately enable them where needed.
Data protection, data recovery and auxiliary copy operations will not use the associated MediaAgent/Library/Drive, depending on where the option is enabled. However, other administrative tasks on the devices such as Full Scan, Drive Cleaning, Verify Media etc. can be performed, if required.
When this option is enabled, the system will automatically select an alternate resource (MediaAgent/Library/Drive) if Alternate Data Paths (GridStor) is enabled. If alternate resources are not available, data protection, data recovery and auxiliary copy will remain in the Waiting state in the Job Controller and will automatically resume when you re-enable the appropriate MediaAgent/Library/Drive.
See Mark MediaAgent/Library/Drive Offline for Maintenance for step-by-step instructions.
You can enable this option to indicate that the MediaAgent should perform error recovery by readjusting the tape position and re-write the last block when IO error occurs. This option maybe enabled when data protection jobs fail due to SCSI related write errors in the library.
However, note that extreme caution must be exercised while selecting this option as it severely impacts the performance of the MediaAgent.
As most write errors are due to hardware failures, steps must be taken to fix the hardware instead of enabling this option. This option may be temporarily enabled to ensure that the current data protection jobs are successful until the hardware is fixed.
Note that the error recovery attempts may not be successful if the hardware errors persists.
Optimize for Concurrent LAN Backups
This option can be enabled when the MediaAgent is used for concurrent data protection operations from a large number of clients. For example, if you have 25 clients concurrently using the MediaAgent for 50 or more data transfer streams in a specific operation window, it is recommended that you enable this option Enabling this option will help to optimize the Operating System resources on the MediaAgent.
See Maximum number of parallel data transfer operations for the maximum number of parallel read/write operations with the Optimize for Concurrent LAN Backups option enabled.
See MediaAgents - Supported Features, Agents and Devices for information on the MediaAgents that support this option.
See Optimize the MediaAgent for Concurrent LAN Backups for step-by-step instructions.
Automatic Update of SCSI ID during live operation
In the SAN environment, the SCSI ID of a device may get changed due to a HBA failover or if the a hardware component in the SAN is reset. In such a situation, read/write requests to the media in the device may fail, resulting in job failures. However, if this option is enabled, the system will automatically scan the device and update the SCSI ID and the job will be re-tried in the established retry interval.
This option also includes the following sub-options:
This option specifies the time interval that must be used for successive retry operations for SCSI ID updates. For example, if a SCSI ID update is performed after a read/write failure and a second read/write failure occurs almost immediately or within the specified time interval, the system will not perform the SCSI ID update. The system will scan for SCSI ID updates only when a error occurs after the specified time interval. It is recommended that the time interval be set to 30 minutes or more, as running jobs could go into pending, when the SCSI ID is updated.
When enabled, this option marks the drive controller offline when the SCSI ID for a device is changed. (This can be viewed from the Drive Properties - Drive Controller tab, where the Drive Accessible will be displayed as No.)
The device detection will be performed once every 24 hours. This property can be modified using the SCSI/SAN device scan interval n hours(s) option in the MediaAgent Properties. Note that if the value established in MediaAgent Properties is less than 24 hours, the system automatically defaults to 24 hours.
If you want to perform this operation more frequently create the nDisabledDriveDetectIntervalMin registry key. Once created, this registry key will override the setting established in the MediaAgent Properties.
The device detection will be repeated for 7 days. If these drives are not accessible even after 7 days, the drives will be marked as accessible. (If the drive continues to have a problem, the subsequent job accessing the drive will once again cause it to be marked as inaccessible.) If necessary the nDisabledDriveMaxDetectionRetryHours registry keys can be created to change the number of days the device detection will be repeated.
On NetWare MediaAgents both these keys must be manually created with a value greater than 0 to enable this feature. |
To communicate with the tape devices, you can use the pass-through driver provided by the MediaAgent, or the native drivers provided by the operating system. When this option is selected the native driver is used. This option is supported by all UNIX MediaAgents. By default, this option is enabled on all Unix MediaAgents. Disable this option, if you do not want to use the native drivers.
See Also:
Send pass-thru commands to Atape
When using native driver support, use this option to enable MediaAgent to send pass-through commands to Atape device drivers.
When enabled, this option automatically detects WORM media when it is used in a drive. This option must be enabled if you plan to use WORM media in the libraries attached to the MediaAgent. (Check the drive manufacturer's documentation to ensure that both the drive model and firmware must support the usage of WORM media.)
When enabled, this option allows you to set the retry options in case of network errors.
The interval (in seconds) at which the Job Manager will continuously check for network connectivity.
The number of times the Job Manager will check for network connectivity.
See Enable/Disable Robust Network Layer for step-by-step instructions. See Robust Network Layer for more details.
A MediaAgent’s Index cache information be viewed from the Catalog tab of the MediaAgent Properties dialog box. You can view or modify the following information associated with the MediaAgent’s index cache configuration:
For a detailed explanation of a MediaAgent's Index Cache, see Index Cache.
The Version tab of the MediaAgent Properties dialog box displays the version number of the MediaAgent software that is installed on the MediaAgent computer. It also displays all post-release Service Packs and Automatic Updates that may have been installed on the MediaAgent. It also displays the location of the update information.
For a detailed explanation of the version information, see Version.
Security allows you to associate the MediaAgent with one or more CommCell user groups.
For a detailed explanation of security, see User Administration and Security.
The Registry Key Settings tab enables you to add, edit, or delete registry keys for Windows and unix MediaAgents. For Netware, you must use the manual process. See Managing Registry Keys From the CommCell Console for more information.
If a firewall separates MediaAgent and other CommCell components it communicates, then you can specify the incoming and outgoing connectivity details between MediaAgent and the components in the Firewall Configuration tab. See Firewalls for more information on supported firewall various firewall scenarios and their configuration.
Operations performed with this feature are recorded in the Audit Trail. See Audit Trail for more information.