I received several responses, my thanks to :
Kevin Criss
Michael Acklin
Pat O'Brien
Richard Loken
Alan Nabeth
for taking their time to respond.
Highlights from the responses :
Legato works pretty well.
Gbit ethernet shortens backup time significantly.
Great Lakes Computer (616)698-1100/Ryan is an alternate source for
pre-printed labels.
If you print your own labels, use durable ink on stiff stock to avoid
registration problems.
MRU (robot) or mcutil will query and display the barcode label
I've had a couple days to play with the unit and I'm pretty pleased. My
backup times have dropped significantly due partly to the faster tape drives
and partly due to having the new mini-library on a separate SCSI bus. My old
TZ89 was on the same HSZ50 as the disks it was backing up, causing
significant I/O contention.
For now I still plan on enhancing my existing backup scripts to manage the
library. I'll add a dbm or perl database of tape labels to log first and
last used dates. This will allow me to verify tape rotation schedules and
flag a tape for replacement in the rotation.
There are a number of bar-code packages available commercially with varying
UNIX support. The gnu-barcode project and foobar are free.
http://www.allen-sauer.com/oracle-toolbox/unix-foobar
http://www.linux.org/apps/AppId_2208.html
Links to many UNIX barcode resources can be found here :
http://www.adams1.com/pub/russadam/unix.html
Alan Davis
davis_at_tessco.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Davis, Alan
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 2:22 PM
To: 'Tru64-Unix-Manglers-List'
Subject: printing labels for TL89x?
What's the current wisdom on the best way to print the labels for the TL89x
mini-library and manage the backups going onto tape?
For now I'll be using vdump from SAN-presented clones rather than spending
the $30K for Networker or Veritas. My current backup scripts log all the
pertinent information about all the dumps written to a single tape. I'll be
enhancing these scripts to include the bar-coded number as well.
Does anyone have examples of capturing the barcode data from a library?
I've got the bar-code printer and PC-based bar-code software. Any
suggestions for Tru64-compatible software for either direct connect for IP
printers?
Alan Davis
davis_at_tessco.com
Received on Thu Jun 07 2001 - 20:37:15 NZST