Appendix A ā Best Practices MLM Best Practices
December 2019 User GuideāSpectra T200, T380, and T680 Libraries
509
Use only Spectra Certified
Media with MLM support (both
data and cleaning cartridges)
in the library
To ensure the best possible performance, use Spectra Certified
Media. Check the Spectra Logic website for the most up-to-date
media availability. Do not use any media that has not been
approved by Spectra Logic for use in the library.
The library uses information in the MLM database to monitor the
health of the media in the library. For MLM-enabled media, the
detailed health reports let you determine whether a particular data
cartridge is past its useful threshold or determine whether a
particular cartridge is experiencing high errors rates or retries. For
MLM-enabled cleaning cartridges, you are notified when a cartridge
is approaching the end of its useful life.
Although MLM tracks the general health of media that is not MLM-
enabled, detailed health information is not available for this media.
Enable load count alerts Load count alerts, used in combination with the media health icon,
let you monitor the health of individual tapes. Tapes with low load
counts, but with a yellow or red health icon are vulnerable to high
errors rates or retries.
For higher levels of notification, configure a threshold for the
maximum number of times a data cartridge can be loaded before an
alert is generated (see Enable and Configure MLM PreScan and
PostScan on page 197). When the number of loads exceeds this
threshold, MLM will generate a system message listing the barcode
of the tape.
You can also enable an alert to notify you when the load count
recorded on the cartridge MAM differs from the load count stored
in the MLM database but none of the other data has changed. This
type of discrepancy can indicate that the tape has been loaded into a
non-Spectra Logic library. Use this alert as a security feature to let
you know when a tape was removed and loaded into a drive in a
different library.
Regularly back up your MLM
database
Determine how frequently to export the MLM database for storage.
You can save the MLM database to a USB device or email it to a
previously configured mail recipient. The database can be loaded
back into the library in the event of an error. See Disaster Recovery
Planning on page 510 and Restore the MLM and DLM Databases on
page 384 for detailed information.
Backing up the MLM database produces a point-in-time snapshot of
the MLM database. Based on the number of tapes you routinely
import into and export from the library, determine how frequently
backups are needed to ensure that you can easily restore the MLM
database.
Enable non-MLM media alerts Alerts for non-MLM-enabled media notify you when a cartridge
that is not MLM-enabled is loaded into a drive.
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