[Oleng Tjioe]

I think it would be better for common people like me if the tutorial divided in 3 parts, Setting up the job, Archiving, and Post-Archiving.

In the screenshot i uploaded here 6266_brutapeinfo201307153.41.44pm.png.zip, i find the terms in that notification a bit confusing, especially if the archive isn’t in separate sessions.

I created a naming system, it’s ArchiveDate_ArchiveOrder_ProjectNumbers. This system doesn’t contain any archive id since i couldn’t tell what it will be beforehand.

That screenshot is of a tape that contains several projects in a single archive, hence [date]_[archive#]_[projectnumbers] 20130608_001_9-13-21-24-35.
I believe the Label is for archive/job label, and that i wasn’t really noticing why there’s two labels there when i ran the job, lol.

Now with separate sessions archive, i get a better idea of what archive id and how to name them, but i hope you can see my confusion here, i’m still not clear on what i should do

Oleng,
Prodigi House
Jakarta, Indonesia

[Oleng Tjioe]

Hi Tim

so basically we’re archiving projects and HD clips/image sequences, the projects are archived up to a year, then we would reuse the tape for new projects.

I don’t really have that much problem with using the software up to archiving part, but when it’s about double checking the job, verifying existing tape, it’s not so easy to grasp. (I used BRU server before, but that’s some time ago)
I struggled with the terms (like tape set, tape name/id, archive id) and how the informations of the files inside the tape or about the tape are presented. Not to mention i can’t really see inside the tape to check if the files are there if the catalog records that there’s no files written in that job.

And on top of it all i also haven’t have a good workflow for documenting the archives. Do i use another cataloging software, so that all the tapes & archives are listed in tabular data, search-friendly & sortable without spending much time doing it manually (and risking bigger probability of human error)

I’m not sure if this is the right place to suggest a software feature/changes, but these questions might include some in here

1. Verify archive in the tape
I understand that it actually verify the archive structure or integrity, but i’d like it if there’s a notification of what archive is verified in the tape. Now it’s just put out a notice that the tape is verified successfully. And to get the information about the tape, i have to go to Restore section which was a bit counter intuitive i think?

2. Do you think i should change to LTFS, for more ease of use? I mean in the future, someone else might have to do all the archiving, doublecheck, restoring and documenting the project files, and i know for sure 90% chance is that guy wouldn’t be as knowledgable at this as me. I’m not bragging, but it’s a fact of life here, it’s hard to get a technical savvy personel. I just happened to end up in this industry myself and stuck around.

3. Is there a way to get the file path in the pdf catalog shorten, or maybe formatted like for every files in the same parent folder they would be grouped like for example:

(parent folder as head)
– (list of the files inside)

/Volumes/Archives/ProjectFolderwithLongNames/DepartmentNameFolder/2013/06/16/
– image0000001.dpx
– longnameoftheframeimage0000002.dpx
– longnameoftheframeimage0000003.dpx
– longnameoftheframeimage0000004.dpx
– longnameoftheframeimage0000005.dpx
– longnameoftheframeimage0000006.dpx
– longnameoftheframeimage0000007.dpx
…

Now what i see is a really long list of truncated path names
/Volumes/Archives/ProjectFolderwithLongNames/Dep…/…/…oftheframeimage0000001.dpx
/Volumes/Archives/ProjectFolderwithLongNames/Dep…/…/…oftheframeimage0000002.dpx
/Volumes/Archives/ProjectFolderwithLongNames/Dep…/…/…oftheframeimage0000003.dpx
/Volumes/Archives/ProjectFolderwithLongNames/Dep…/…/…oftheframeimage0000004.dpx

PS:
I read the user guide today, and i got a better understanding of the terms, like archive id (in separate sessions), etc. but i still have some confusions. maybe i should divide this questions into several shorter posts

Oleng,
Prodigi House
Jakarta, Indonesia

[Oleng Tjioe]

I’ll just recycle this post

To put it short, i want to know the methods to match the content of the tapes with the files archived in the job. I think several things that confused me are:

– At first i thought that the saved job definitions is used to compared the content of the tape (for Restore). Now i realised that the catalog tar is the document that BRU PE look at when restoring files.
– When i create a job definition in Advanced View, there’s a base job definition, which correlation i don’t understand
– I have several jobs that resulted in 0 files written, i even uncompressed the TapeInfo and open the catalog file, but there’s no file records there.

But overall i haven’t get the whole picture how to make BRU PE works for us after archiving, the parts of verifying, documenting and restoring the tapes.

Oleng,
Prodigi House
Jakarta, Indonesia

[Oleng Tjioe]

I just remember that i probably should ask Tim Jones first..

Hi Tim…
Is there any kind of walkthrough in using BRU PE, like a video tutorial, that explains what to do and what to avoid?
I usually left the archiving overnight, and I found that i get confused on a lot of details, like how to verify if the tape we used has the data (i remembered that in BRU Server there’s an information block about the tape ID & related infos of the loaded tape), or if the archiving actually succeeded.

What i do is I usually waited to see that the job is running, when it started to writing, i just left the job and check the following day. When i come back & see that the archiving is done, i exported the pdf to check the job details and i can’t find any list of files in that pdf, which is weird because i saw that BRU reported the file name & what size being archived in the progress window.
But yeah, there’s a lot of things that i can’t wrap my head around, i think that a video tutorial or a walkthrough might help answer some of them so i can find out if there’s some real problems that i encountered instead of problems caused by my own dumb mistakes.

Thanks.
Oleng

Oleng,
Prodigi House
Jakarta, Indonesia

[Oleng Tjioe]

very useful advice, really appreciate it, Steve

[Oleng Tjioe]

[Bob Zelin] “REPLY –
NAS support .afp, .smb, and .nfs. 10GbE with SFP+ fibre transceivers are currently more popular and more readily available. Cat6A is not as widely available from many manufacturers, and there are less switch companies that make RJ45 CAT6A swithes – specifically, right now, the only RJ45 Cat6A switches come from Small Tree, Interface Masters and Arista Networks – that’s it. For SFP+ Fibre 10g switches, there are LOTS of companies that make these.
The Cat6A switches cost a LOT more money – around $15,000 US. One day these prices will drop – today is not that day.”

Yeah it is still crazy expensive..

“REPLY – you can get this right now from many companies, using standard protocols, using Linux, OS X or Windows 2008 Server depending on what brand you choose. No aggrigation – just direct connect 10gig from server to client.

But it’s also their software & filesystem that we’re interested in, not merely the networking tech they build it in.. 🙂

REPLY – my advice is that you find a company that will give you support in Indonesia. Many US companies do not have support in Indonesia. I would be happy to pitch my system, as we can do direct connect 10gig ethernet, but I can’t support you properly, unless you consider long distance remote access the kind of support that you find acceptable.

Creative Cow shows lots and lots of companies that sell shared storage – almost all are excellent. I do not know who can support you in Indonesia, except for remote support over the internet.”

Now worries, appreciated it, Bob.. Thanks for taking the time.

[Oleng Tjioe]

Rob, that’s also my thought, fibre infrastructure is too expensive when 10GbE is (seemingly) starting to take off.

[Oleng Tjioe]

Thank you Steve for sharing

[Steve Modica] “10Gb uses NAS protocols (like AFP and Samba) and files are accessed as files off of a server. It’s easier to setup, simpler to understand and has only one server as a point of failure (which you can make redundant via LACP, dual power etc).

would you care to elaborate further? what other protocols that NAS usually support? what do you mean with dual power?
i’m also curious about the difference about 10GbE SFP+ (with copper or fibre cables) & 10GBASE-T (Cat6A) since i can’t find a comparison of the two that states the pros & cons. i imagine a Cat6A would have a better durability & length factor. is it latency that makes SFP+ still preferred now?

i have been told that a certain company would release a NAS storage that has a dual 10GbE connection but not aggregated, it only uses the ports & cables as channels. They wrote their own filesystem as well, which is their main weakness point so far, since it means they have to write a driver for other OS in order to get those operating systems to recognize the storage/server filesystem (as proprietary system would). Otherwise their product is very much interesting aside the price, which is not released yet, i’m sure it isn’t that expensive in terms of value, but it would still be quite a lot money since they have more than 50TB. i don’t think it’s wise for our company to buy it because of that, not in this stage anyway.

Fibre channel and iSCSI are not shared. The idea is that clients access the storage directly with a metadata server playing traffic cop. Everyone is diddling with the inode table via the metadata server. We’ve set these up with our iSCSI to test performance and compatibility (iSCSI 10Gb is faster than FC BTW). It’s complicated. You have to have lots of LUNS to stripe together plus a metadata LUN that’s mirrored”

i agree completely, this has been a great disadvantage for fibre, nightmare when there’s a problem.

[Oleng Tjioe]

SANLink is out for $799

some other products are out there i suppose, or will be soon (ATTO, Small Tree, Sonnet, …).

i’d love to hear the experiences anybody using Thunderbolt to 10GbE/FC/SAS/eSATA since i’m thinking about using a Mac Mini Server for serving shared storage or serving LTO backups. At least until a new Mac Pro with Thunderbolt support comes out.

[Oleng Tjioe]

Thanks Bob, much appreciated. I was also given pretty much the same advice by a former system integrator. I’m in Indonesia, i’d be glad to contact anybody you refer/recommend.

Also, I’m making this thread for a brainstorming purpose as well, it’s an aspect of decision making that i don’t find in a lot of sites that discusses storage.
In our case, it’s a brand new place which means there’s a chance to choose the right path for the next 3-5 years. Certainly we have a luxury that an existing facility wouldn’t get when deciding on adding/upgrading hardwares.

Actually now I’m kind of leaning toward 10GbE since the trend seems to indicate this technology has been picked up by the big players (Facebook, Google, etc). If i’m a betting man then i’d bet on 10GbE getting more cheaper & having more options in the next 5 years.