Hi everyone,
I started a new role recently and have been given the task of working out how to use Backup exec 2010 R3 and our IBM TS3100 tape library to backup our Veeam backup's so we can store them in a safe/offsite.
Unfortunatly our predecors did not leave us much information on how to use the tape library and never having used one myself I am struggling to get my head around how it all works.
This is our situation, in a little more detail......
We currently have Veeam backing up a number of VM's on a daily/weekly basis. This works well but the files are all backed up to a SAN located in the on-site server room. If there is a fire/disaster in the server room we would have no off-site backup of these files created by Veeam. We would like to backup these files to our IBM TS3100 tape library (also located in the server room) so that we can on a daily basis take the relevant tapes out of the library for safe/off site storage.
In theory this all sounds quite straight forward, however I am really confused about the removal of the tapes from the library. It seems to me as though the library is not really designed to regularly have tapes taken out for off-site storage and it is more designed for them just to constantly stay in the library permantly rotating and being reused. This is of course crazy if your library is located in the same location as the servers you want to backup.
I have discovered the I/O station (which I understant is more commonly known as the mail slot), but it seems like a crazy amount of effort to use the library's web ui to manually move each tape to the I/O station for storage.
Any words of advice, pointers or guides regarding using BE and tape library's would be appreciated