HP Data Protector MOM Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide

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Central Media Management Database concept
IDB and CMMDB
In the MoM environment, you can use the Centralized Media Management Database (CMMDB),
to share devices and media across several cells.
The Internal Database (IDB) keeps information about backup, restore, and media management
sessions, devices, and media. It consists of five parts — MMDB, CDB, DCBF, SMBF, and SIBF—
that are located on the Cell Manager. Each part stores some specific Data Protector information.
For security reasons, it is impossible to access and use this data from another Data Protector cell.
In large multi-cell environments with high-end backup devices, you may want to share the devices
and media among several cells. This can be achieved by having one CMMDB for all the cells and
keeping an individual CDB for each cell. This allows media and device sharing while preserving
the security capabilities of the multi-cell structure.
Note: You cannot configure a device connected to a client of an individual cell of a MoM
environment directly from the MoM Manager, only from the appropriate Cell Manager. Only
devices that are connected directly to Cell Managers can be configured from the MoM Manager.
To configure devices in such a case, either configure the devices from the Cell Manager or follow
the following steps.
To configure devices and media for any cell within your enterprise environment:
1. In the MoM, click Clients in the Context List.
2. Select the cell that has the devices or media that you want to manage.
3. In the Tools menu, click Device & Media Administration.
4. A Data Protector Manager GUI opens with the Devices & Media context displayed.
5. Configure devices and media as if you were a local administrator.
How are media shared?
With the CMMDB, media can only be owned by the Data Protector cell that performed the first
backup on those media. The media owner is displayed in the media view. While media are
protected, only backups from that cell can be appended to the media. Each medium with
protected data on it has information showing which cell currently owns the data. Once the
protection expires, the media become available to other cells again.
How are media initialized?
If a tape has been initialized by one cell, any other cell can use it as long as it does not have any
protected data on it. If a tape is loaded in a library and not yet initialized, any cell can initialize
it, assuming that there is a loose policy and no other tapes are available. The media allocation
rules apply in exactly the same way to shared tapes, except that appendable media can only be
appended by the cell that owns them.
Important
The CMMDB has a significant effect on licensing. Immediately after the MMDB is changed from
local to remote, all the licenses associated with libraries and devices are taken (validated) from
the MoM Manager and should be removed from client cells.
A cell in the enterprise environment must have access to the CMMDB to be able to run a
backup. The backup will fail if a network failure occurs between the specific client cell and the
MoM cell.