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Media offline/online updating
We want CatDV to know when media is offline or online so it knows when media needs to be restored from LTO. The O/L column would seem perfect for this but it only updates when the entry is double clicked on forcing CatDV to open the file.
I thought “Re-Anaylize” media would update this but it does not. The only command that does is “Update Media Location..” but that pops up a “where is file..” box which has to be canceled then a failed error message pops up. All quite messy. Even “Scan for new files” does not update online status.
I basically what the CatDv to accurately report a file’s online status accurately. I’d like to cover all contingencies including files being removed or moved outside CatDV. Is there a way in Worker to trigger regular file scans to keep to catalogs accurate?
Short of this I suppose Worker could respond to a “Delete Media” check box… this combined with a restore history field one could derive whether the file is present but I’d like a more direct approach.
Thanks
John -
5 Replies
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“Online” is a very subjective thing… right? 😉
Since it’s dependent on the system component you can’t really track it in the database.(We actually have workflows where Worker Nodes are deliberately left “offline” for one reason of another so the asset is online and offline at the same time depending on which machine you are using.)
One Note: A full file system scan might take a while in a large file system.
Lets use 1 sec for a Worker Node task transaction time involving the file system. (YMMV) That would be 83 hours for a 300,000 item file system. (I’m assuming that you guys are going to be far above that file count.) Also for those 4 days nothing else could be done on that Node.
I’ve never seen this type of scan done in the Worker, personally. But you can have a script check to see if a file is online before performing an action and then respond accordingly. Remember that a workflow can have several actions in it so multiples might get you what you want.
One thing to mention as an example of something similar. We’ve recently developed a connection from CatDV to Isilon where we are using the OneFS API to manipulate files directly from the Isilon cluster for Tier1 to Tier2 archiving. The reason I mention this is that If your storage/file system is sufficiently fancy, (technical term there) you can gather a lot of info from it, including checking file location/existence very quickly.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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Hi Bryson
Thanks for the quick response.
[bryson jones] “”Online” is a very subjective thing… right? ;)”
In this case no… Is the file where the catalog thinks it is? Yes/No We don’t have any alternate Hi_Res directories listed.
As far as scanning the entire filesystem… I would only do it by catalog, or group of catalogs, so presumably Worker would only look for files in the catalogs, not the entire filesystem/s.
I wouldn’t need to know online status for a particular file but really the entire catalog so scripts would be of little use unless there’s a way of stepping through an entire cat prior to and action being triggered. The action for this workflow is to send an xml of the catalog to our MAM,
What I’m really shooting for is to have our MAM query the CatDV database directly hence my desire to have the DB indicate “online” status accurately.
Back to my opening question… Is there no command to check the O/L status of each file in a catalog short of opening it? That would be a good start.
Thanks
John -
There is no command for this to my knowledge.
If the file is “seen” the CatDV Pro app can perform actions. (The Worker Node also works this way.)
The db does not store “online” as a status.
The purpose of the scripting would only be to check if the file is there and report status or fire an action.
Worker knows if the file is online or not, but doesn’t have a way in the GUI to report that into a db field.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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[bryson jones] “The db does not store “online” as a status”
I see that now. I saw that an xml export from the CatDV app did include <
>Online movie >>ONLINE>> so I assumed the same field would be present in the db. Any reason why it can’t be? Does the Archive add-on add anything to manage “online” status? Knowing if a file is available would seem to be a fairly basic need. I supposed issuing a command and seeing if fail would indicate an offline status but is a messy way a ding things.
John
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CatDV is an interesting hybrid in some ways. The client app will store/access conditional info that is not in the db, such as “online” meaning, “it’s online to me now, on this station.”
There’s no reason you can’t add a field that indicates online status but know that it should never be relied on as it can of course be wrong at any moment. In our archive plugins we manage this ourselves as when we move to “Tier-2” we note that the asset is “online” but on Tier-2 so that the system knows where to look. In this way, it’s “offline” to all users except the server that’s moving the files but we are assuring the user that it’s available to the automation.
This of course requires that no one be able to “go around” the MAM and move files around but I know you can control access over there. One tip, you might also want to store a log field of the last time the file was checked. We keep a checksum and the date/time it ran so we know the file was “good” as of that date/time.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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