Method, apparatus and computer program product for implementing enhanced autonomic backup using multiple backup devices

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided for implementing enhanced autonomic data backup using multiple backup devices. A media definition object is defined for saving predefined user selections including a default backup format to be used, an order to process the libraries, a library exception size, and a maximum number of backup devices to be used serially. A list of libraries is generated by either a user specified order of the libraries or a size order of the libraries from largest to smallest. Each library in the generated list of libraries is processed to form at least one library queue of a serial device wait queue and a parallel device wait queue. A process IO procedure is called until backup completes for each library from the at least one library queue.