We have a couple of servers that we would like to schedule unattended backups on, using NT Backup and the RSM in Win2000.

The solution i'm looking for is a schedule that takes a full backup twice a week and uses 2 sets of tapes (ie, monday week 1, monday week 2, thursday week 1, thursday week 2).

What i want to accomplish is an automation of this without any more user interference than the change of tapes.

With the change of tapes I also want to be able to check what tape is in the drive (Travan 5), is it possible to do this with NTBACKUP.exe or RSM (i've looked here, but didn't find anything about tape handling..)?

The idea was to check the tapestatus before the actual backup is scheduled, and warn the person responsible for changing tapes that he/she should do so (via BLAT).

Have somebody done something like this with the help of KiX?

I LOVE off-topic threads !

just one thouhgt :

If you need to have a real disaster recovery strategy ... don't use ntbackup.exe

Jochen

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Hehe.. well, this is no oh-so-goddamn-important backup thing i just want to be able to fully automated unattended (except for "clients" switching tapes) backup twice a week.

I thought that KiX scriptning together with NTBACKUP (it's not bad at all in Win2000 ) & BLAT just might do the trick (ie, no expensive VERITAS network licenses).

What do u think? As said, NTBACKUP supports alot of command line switches (ita actually operates with them), and so does RSM.. but I just need a little help

[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: masken ]

"Have somebody done something like this with the help of KiX?"

-Shawn

btw, does any1 know how to check if a file is locked or not? The thing is, i'm running backup on a database, and the file cant be in use/locked by someone cause ntbackup won't be able to copy it correctly then...

If it's some other home made db, then try testing it with an Open() cmd and check the return code.

quote:

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If it's some other home made db, then try testing it with an Open() cmd and check the return code.

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hmm.. was thinking about the OPEN() function too... but the db's are 300mb+, and if it can be opened..? How will KiXtart reach on this?

there is no other way to see which workstations etc are connected to the file? And/or how to throw them "out" from the file?

[ 13 December 2001: Message edited by: masken ]

I use ARCserve OFA so, for me it's not a problem. On my SQL dbs, i have a SQL job do the backup to another HD off-site and then use ARCserve to backup the off-site file.

I wondeer if you could use that sort of scheme. Run a script on the box that holds the db to do a simple copy several times a day and then backup the copy once a day or whatever.

Just tossing out half-baked ideas...

Setup a scheduled script that polls the cash registers to see if they are still up at the time they should be down. Use ping if they're IP or a process viewer to see if the software is running and send out nag screens or kill the process if it doesn't compromise the db. The script can then put up a flag for the one doing the backup (if they are not one and the same) or proceed if all one script.

I think this has to be serverside. Some way to check if there's any processes using the dabasefile.

But thanks for the ideas!

Edit
Ok, here's exactly what I want to accomplish...

• Backup a database that could be in use (ie, check this first)
  
• The db could be in use via clients on the network, or on the server (on both sides there's an application that locks the db, and has to be closed).
  
• Backup should be twice a week (monday & thursday), switching between two tapesets
  
• "Clients" managing the tapeswitching won't have access to the server.
  
• Some sort of notification system when they should change tapes (probably BLAT).
  

As u can see, i've got some scriptning to do.. It seems I can solve all the backup related things via ntbackup.exe on the 2000 servers, but then I have no control over the applications being open etc...

[ 14 December 2001: Message edited by: masken ]