The Tape Utilization Report provides trends in tape utilization to assist in capacity planning and making decisions about allocating additional tapes.

The first page of the report, the summary page, shows tape utilization statistics for all protection groups as specified by the time period in the report parameters. This allows system administrators to view trends in tape usage to allow them to make early purchase decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

While you are reviewing the data in the Tape Utilization Report, you might have the following questions about how to use the data or interpret the report.

How often should I run a Tape Utilization Report?

You should run the Tape Utilization Report whenever you need to make decisions about the capacity and utilization of your tape library. You might want to run a Tape Utilization Report once a quarter.

How do I determine when I will run out of capacity on the tape?

The Tape Utilization Report provides trends of tape usage. If you notice that tape usage has been increasing on the backup server, you can estimate the percentage for the number of tapes that will be used over the next report period. If the trend for tape usage is upward, estimate when you will run out of capacity and acquire additional tapes before you no longer have space.

The Tape Utilization Report shows unrecognized tapes in the library. How do I get DPM to recognize the tapes?

When a tape containing data is added to the tape library and the tape label displays as "Unknown", you can use DPM to identify the tape.

When DPM identifies the tape, it reads the tape header and updates the tape label as follows:

  • A tape created by the DPM server displays the assigned tape label.

  • A tape created by another DPM server displays Imported as the tape label.

  • A tape that contains content that was not created by DPM displays Unrecognized as the tape label.

See Also