Symantec Backup Exec – Error “0xA000821 – Library Error – incompatible storage media detected in robotic library” occurs when an inventory is run against the robotic library

Last week, I encountered this situation:

• A Backup server with Windows 2003 and Symantec Backup Exec 12.5. The Daily Inventory Job has Error Reports with description: “incompatible storage media detected in robotic library”
• A Dell PowerVault TL4000 Tape library with two LTO3 drives, with a yellow “Media Alert” LED on. The Web interface showed me that some tapes has been marked “Bad”, so that explained the Media Alert.

ESXi 4.1 Unattended Installation an Overview

Update per April, 28^th 2011.

I do like to keep my posts up-to-date. This post would not be complete without mentioning VMware Labs fling, the  PXE Manager for vCenter .

VMware PXE Manager is a management tool that supports automatic PXE boot (network boot using PXE) and automatic customization of large numbers of ESXi systems,

Other features are :

• Automated provisioning of new ESXi hosts stateless and stateful (no ESX)
• ESXi host state (firmware) backup, restore, and archiving with retention
• ESXi builds repository management (stateless and statefull)
• ESXi Patch management
• Multi vCenter support
• Multi network support with agents (Linux CentOS virtual appliance will be available later)
• Wake on Lan
• Hosts memtest
• vCenter plugin
• Deploy directly to VMware Cloud Director
• Deploy to Cisco UCS blades

This fling is accompanied by instructions and two videos. The first one shows you how to install PXE manager and the second one shows you how to install a stateless ESXi server.

Introduction

Maybe it is because of my Linux background, one subject that always intrigues me is scripting. When work becomes routine, it is time for a script. Some time ago, I got involved in deploying VMware ESX 3.5 (Classic) and I had a nice time writing kickstart scripts. Especially the %post part was fun.

Then VMware announced ESX 4.1 will be the last version with the “Classic Console”, all future versions will be based on ESXi. At that moment I decided to say “Goodbye  to the Console (and all the benefits)” and to concentrate on ESXi and meet the challenges that come with something new. The first one: Deployment.

Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX 4.1

One night, I was looking for information about memory management in VMware ESX. Of course, the first source of information is the vSphere Resource Management Guide. Chapter 3 provides some information on this subject.

More in-depth information can be found in this Performance Study: Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX 4.1.