System and Method for Identifying Failing Drives or Media in Media Library

Abstract

Embodiments of methods and systems comprise identifying failing media and/or drives for a media library. Error data can be collected from media libraries. For each tape exhibiting an error rate of interest, a determination can be made whether the tape would still have been of interest had it not been loaded in certain drives. This information can be analyzed to identify failing drives or tapes.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of identifying failing media library components, comprising:
 issuing SCSI commands to query one or more library components of a media library at intervals and receiving returned data;   determining media and drive combinations, and error rates for the media and drive combinations, from the returned data;   identifying a media in the media and drive combinations that experienced an error rate greater than a first threshold error rate;   determining drive impact data for the media that indicates whether the media would still have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had that media not been loaded in one or more drives in which the media was loaded; and   for a drive in the media and drive combinations in which the media was loaded, identifying whether the drive is suspected of causing the media to have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate based on the drive impact data.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the indicating comprises displaying a first visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive and displaying a second visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determine that the media would have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising selecting the first visual indicator based on a level of certainty that the drive caused the media to experience greater than the first threshold error rate. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein identifying the media in the media and drive combinations that experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold error rate comprises determining if a highest error rate for the media is greater than the first threshold. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein determining the drive impact data for the media comprises:
 recording a first drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive; and the   recording a second drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the first impact is selected based on a level of drop in error rate of the media had the media not been loaded in the drive. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the second impact is selected based on whether the media was loaded in other drives. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , issuing the SCSI commands comprises issuing the SCSI commands over fibre channel. 
     
     
         9 . A media library monitoring system comprising:
 a processor;   a memory; and   computer executable instructions stored on the memory and executable to perform the steps of:
 issuing SCSI commands to query one or more library components of a media library at intervals and receiving returned data; 
 determining media and drive combinations and error rates for the media and drive combinations from the returned data; 
 identifying a media in the media and drive combinations that experienced an error rate greater than a first threshold error rate; 
 determining drive impact data for the media that indicates whether the media would still have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had that media not been loaded in one or more drives in which the media was loaded; and 
 for a drive in the media and drive combinations in which the media was loaded, identifying whether the drive is suspected of causing the media to have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate based on the drive impact data. 
   
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein the indicating comprises displaying a first visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive and displaying a second visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determine that the media would have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further executable to perform the step of selecting the first visual indicator based on a level of certainty that the drive caused the media to experience greater than the first threshold error rate. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein identifying the media in the media and drive combinations that experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold error rate comprises determining if a highest error rate for the media is greater than the first threshold. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further executable to perform the steps of:
 recording a first drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive; and   recording a second drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive.   
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the first impact is selected based on a level of drop in error rate of the media had the media not been loaded in the drive. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 13 , wherein the second impact is selected based on whether the media was loaded in other drives. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 9 , further comprising a fibre channel communications interface. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 9 , further comprising:
 a monitoring appliance configured to perform the issuing of the SCSI commands to the media library to query one or more library components of the media library at intervals and the receiving of the returned data, the monitoring appliance further configured to store the returned data in a repository; and   a management station configured to perform the steps of determining media and drive combinations and error rates for the media and drive combinations from the returned data, identifying a media in the media and drive combinations that experienced an error rate greater than the first threshold error rate, determining the drive impact data for the media that indicates whether the media would still have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had that media not been loaded in one or more drives in which the media was loaded and identifying whether the drive is suspected of causing the media to have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate based on the drive impact data.   
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 9 , wherein the computer instructions comprise a data engine and a storage engine, the data engine configured to provide the returned data to the storage engine in a structured format and the storage engine is configured to read the data in the structured format and store the returned data in a repository. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the data engine is further configured to format SCSI data as an XML document and provide the XML document to the storage engine. 
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 19 , wherein the storage engine is configured to unpack the XML document and store the returned data as database records.