Early warning of media member requirement?

[BillIrwin]

Is there any way of getting Retrospect 6.5 server to notify that a new media member is required prior to the next scheduled backup, without logging into the server and running Retrospect and having it check on its way out? I was hoping that the e-mail feature would do this, but it doesn't.

 

If a Recycle backup gets missed because the right member isn't available this can cause a major change to the existing job's schedule.

 

Being able to create a scheduled job that terminates at a specified date would also be very useful when a backup set fills prior to the next Recycle and you want to start using the next set early, without adjusting the normal schedule. A Wish List item.

 

Bill

[natew]

Hi

 

The problem here is that Retrospect has no way to predict how much media is going to be required for a pending job without actually running the job.

 

What media are you using? You may be able to define a new member ahead of time.

 

Thanks

Nate

[BillIrwin]

I'm only suggesting that the media member that's next scheduled to be used, should trigger an e-mail if it's not available. This would allow an opportunity to insert the member prior to the scheduled backup time. I'm not suggesting that Retrospect try and determine if there's enough free space on the available member, with a warning that it will fill in the next backup.

 

I'm using USB 200 GB disks that are rotated with one going off site each week. I'd like to be notified if the member for the next weekly backup set hasn't been connected. Then I'd have a chance to remind the backup manager prior to a failure notice.

 

I see that 7 has just been released so, if this hasn't been added, I guess it will be a long wait for it. Receiving proactive notifications of potential problems is very freeing in not having to check a lot of things that are OK, most of the time.

 

Thanks Nate.

Bill

[natew]

Ah, I see now.

 

This is a hack but may help.

 

-Set the Retrospect lookahead time to 1 hour.

-Turn on the media request timeout.

-turn on email notification,

-Set up a "dummy" script that runs a small backup of a single file to your backup sets every day. This script should mirror your main backup rotation and run at the time when you want notification about the media.

 

If this "dummy" script can't find the media it needs it will notify you by email. That way the correct media will be in the drive when the real backup runs.

 

Far from perfect but it will work at least.

 

Thanks

nate

 

The script will run every day

[BillIrwin]

Good idea. Only the backups run at 2 AM so I'd have to set the test to run around 3 PM on weekdays only so there's someone around to respond to the e-mail warning. I just copied the script and deleted the Recycle schedules and turned off Sat & Sun on the normal runs while setting their time to 3 PM.

 

But why set the look ahead time to one hour? Doesn't that just stop Retrospect from terminating once the test backup is finished, becasue the next backup is scheduled within the look ahead time? If so, why would I want to keep Retrospect running? I never have figured out why that's important enough to have this function.

 

Bill

[natew]

Hi

 

Setting the lookahead time to one hour will force Retrospect to quit if there are no scheduled scripts set to go in the next hour. You don't have to change this if you don't want to.

 

Thanks

Nate