Backing Up Data › Backup Staging Methods › How to Manage Backup Data Using Tape Staging › How Backup to Tape to Tape Works

How Backup to Tape to Tape Works

Backup to tape to tape is a data protection solution that lets you to back up data to a tape library or a virtual tape library, and then copy the data to a different tape library or other type of device. Copy operations, also known as migration, are governed by user-specified copy policies.

Backup to tape to tape (B2T2T) is a two-part backup process.

• Backup Process--Arcserve Backup backs up data from the source to the staging location. The staging location is a tape library or a virtual tape library (VTL).
• Copy Process--Arcserve Backup copies or migrates the backup data from the staging location to the final destination media. The final destination is tape media.

The following diagram illustrates the flow of data from the source to the first stage tape library (or virtual tape library) and then on to the final destination.

Note: Arcserve Backup lets you transmit up to 32 streams of data using multistreaming. To back up data using multiple streams and transmit more than two streams of backup data, you must license the Arcserve Backup Enterprise Module.

When you use backup to tape to tape (B2T2T) to protect data, the backup to tape to tape operation consists of two phases:

Backup Phase

Arcserve Backup backs up data from the source to the tapes in the first stage, based on user-specified policies.

• Backup jobs can consist of full, incremental, or differential backups.
• During the backup job, global options, media selection rules, media pool usage, rotation rules, GFS rotation rules, Alert messages, Export options, and so on are identical to that of backing up directly to tape.

  Note: Various global backup options do not apply to backup phase operations.

• Multiplexing and multistreaming can be used to transmit and save data to first stage media.

  Note: The Multiplexing option can be used for backup operations to all tape devices, with the exception of file system devices. The Multistreaming option can be used for backup operations to tape libraries that contain two or more drives.

Copy Phase

Arcserve Backup copies data from the first stage to the final destination based on user-specified policies.

• Arcserve Backup copies data from the first stage media to the final destination media one session at a time. Multiple sessions cannot be copied to a single tape simultaneously.
• If you need to copy data from more than one first stage media to one final destination media, Arcserve Backup copies each session in succession until all the sessions are copied to the final destination media.
• Arcserve Backup sessions associated with different jobs can be consolidated during migration. You can activate this capability using the consolidation option.
• If a hardware error occurs during the process of copying data to final destination, the job stops and Arcserve Backup creates a Makeup Job On Hold. After you correct the hardware error, you can change the job status to Ready, and then the job resumes.

More information:

How to Use Tape Staging to Manage Backup Operations

How to Configure Arcserve Backup to Perform Tape Staging Backups

How to Submit a Tape Staging Backup Job