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Configuring and Using Backup Devices
Device Locking
Chapter 274
Device Locking
Internal Locking The internal locking of backup devices prevents two Data Protector
sessions from accessing the same physical device at the same time. For
example, if one backup session is using a particular device, all other
backup/restore sessions must wait for this device to become free before
starting to use it. When a backup or restore session starts, the Data
Protector locks the device, the drive, and the slot used for that session.
Media sessions performing media operations such as initialization,
scanning, verifying, copying, or importing also lock devices. During that
time, no other operations can lock and use the device. If a media session
cannot obtain a lock, the operation fails, and you have to retry the
operation at a later time.
Locking When a
Mount Request Is
Issued
During a mount request of a backup or restore session, Data Protector
allows the device to be used for media management operations, such as
formatting a new medium.
When the mount request is confirmed, the backup or restore session
locks the device again and continues with the session.
Locking with Data
Protector
You can configure the same physical device many times with different
characteristics, simply by configuring devices with different device
names.
Since the internal locking operates on logical devices rather than on
physical devices, a collision can occur if you specify one device name in
one backup specification and another device name for the same physical
device in another backup specification. Depending on the backup
schedule, this may result in Data Protector trying to use the same
physical device in several backup sessions at the same time. This can
also happen when two device names are used in other operations, such as
backup and restore, backup and scan, and so on.
To prevent this collision, you can specify a virtual lock name in both
device configurations. Data Protector then uses this lock name to check if
the device is available, thus preventing collisions.
If you configure two Data Protector backup devices that actually point to
the same physical device, you are advised to specify the Lock Name in the
advanced options for the two logical devices. Lock Name is the name that