Q: What's an easy way to analyze my backup drive usage? We have Automated Cartridge System (ACS) drives attached to Windows and Unix boxes, using a silo to load tapes.

A: There really isn't an "easy way" to report on drive usage, but there are two ways to get what you want, one a little more complex than the other.

First, backup monitoring products such as those from Bocada and WysDM are fairly intuitive, though establishing the correlation between a tape device and a specific backup isn't necessarily easily done. Still, they do offer more functionality than tape device monitoring. The more complex way is to use a combination of ACS Library Software (ACSLS) and robtest commands, though this requires technical skills, time and knowledge of scripting languages.

--Pierre Dorion, Certified Business Continuity Professional, Mainland Information Systems