Re: direct attached disk (DAS) at a tape library?

Eliza,

This is what I did in an AIX environment:

1) Configure, or confirm the config of, the VTL it self (it comes from
Sepaton configed to your specs): Network config, email config, dns
config, number of drives, number/size of cartridges, etc.

2) Connect the Ethernet port to your network (used for management of the
VTL itself)

3) connect the Sepaton VTL to your fiber adapter on the AIX box

4) On AIX run cfgmgr (this allows AIX to make available the virtual tape
drives at the OS level as rmt devices).

5) On AIX run "lsdev -Cc tape" to confirm that the drives are available.

6) Now to make the AIX tape devices available to TSM
___smitty->Devices->Tivoli Storage Manager Devices->Fibre Channel SAN
Attached Devices->Discover Devices Supported by TSM
___This made 50 drives available to TSM as devices mt0 through mt49 and
the library at lb0

7) Place the following TSM commands into a file "ds_setup.txt", Comment
lines begin with a "#"
# Define a library
DEFine LIBRary DS01 LIBType=SCSI DEVIce=/dev/lb0 SHAREd=no
# Define each drive in the library (created these lines with some unix
scripting)
DEFine DRive DS01 DS01DRV00 DEVIce=/dev/mt0 ONLine=YES element=128
.
.
.
DEFine DRive DS01 DS01DRV49 DEVIce=/dev/mt49 ONLine=YES element=177
# Define a device class for the VTL tapes
DEFine DEVclass DS01TAPE LIBRary=DS01 DEVType=DLT FORMAT=DRIVE
ESTCAPacity=10G MOUNTRetention=1 MOUNTWait=2 MOUNTLimit=DRIVES 
# Define a stgpool for
DEFine STGpool DS01POOL DS01TAPE POoltype=PRimary ACCess=READWrite
COLlocate=NO MAXSCRatch=999 REUsedelay=3
# Define a small disk stgpool as a front end for small files.  This
improves performance by
# preventing the so called "wiper effect" (don't ask me, a 1GB stgpool
is no big deal). 
DEFine STGpool DS01DISK DISK POoltype=PRimary ACCess=READWrite
MAXSIze=100m NEXTstgpool=DS01POOL HIghmig=90 LOwmig=0 MIGPRocess=1
# Define a volume for DS01DISK 
DEFine Volume DS01DISK  /tsm/stgpool/ds01disk/vol1.stg Formatsize=1000
# Now label and checkin the VTL cartridges, takes about 5-6 seconds per
cartridge
LABEl LIBVolume DS01 SEARCH=YES LABELSource=BARCODE CHECKIN=SCRATCH
OVERWRITE=YES  

8) Process ds_setup.txt
egrep -v "^#" ds_setup.txt | /usr/bin/dsmadmc -id=<your_admin_id>
-pa=<your_admin_password>

After doing this I pointed a test server to backup to DS01DISK and it
wotked without a problem.  Pretty simple.

H. Milton Johnson

 
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Eliza Lau
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 9:29 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: direct attached disk (DAS) at a tape library?

Milton,

Sepaton is going to ship us a S2100-DS for testing with no commitment to
buy.  Can you share with us your experience?  Is it worth 3 times the
cost of setting up our own DASD.  Is it as easy to implement as they
claim and how is their support?  As far as I know, compression will be
available in Q1 2005.  Our goal is to put the VTL or DASD in a building
1.5 miles away and put the primary stgpool on it.  The 3494 will stay in
the machine room and will keep the 'offsite' tape pools.
Then we will never have to mess around with tape vaulting ever again.

Eliza Lau
Virginia Tech Computing Center

>
>  Bill,
>
> I am presently implementing the S2100-ES and S2100-DS VTLs by Sepaton 
> which are also TSM certified.  While at present I am using them as 
> directly fiber attached devices to my TSM server, I chose a VTL 
> solution over a DASD solution because: (1) I wanted to preserve the 
> ability to do a LANFree back-up in the future; (2) the VTL offers 
> compression without any performance hit to my TSM server or clients.  
> As far as costs are concerned, sure you are paying something for the 
> VTL layer, but compression decreases that cost, besides TANSTAAFL 
> (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch).  We were faced with the 
> need for a major expansion and sticking with the tradition tape with a

> disk stgpool front end would have been very expensive.  Give me a 
> month or two and I should be able to report on life with a TSM and
VTL.
>
> H. Milton Johnson
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf 
> Of Bill Smoldt
> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 8:01 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: direct attached disk (DAS) at a tape library?
>
> Milton,
>
> After I wrote the last message, I noticed that FalconStor has 
> certified TSM SAN clients with their product, which is used by EMC and

> other manufacturers.  I was thinking that it would be more interesting

> to run the VTL software on the TSM server rather than add another 
> piece of hardware, however.
>
> So VTL might be a nice alternative to trying to implement a shared SAN

> filesystem (SANergy) just to achieve shared file pools.  I haven't 
> looked at the price.  Have you?
>
> Bill Smoldt
> STORServer, Inc.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf 
> Of Johnson, Milton
> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 6:48 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: direct attached disk (DAS) at a tape library?
>
>  A virtual tape library operates and connects just like a physical 
> tape library in a SAN environment.  The VTL, TSM server and your 
> client are connected to the SAN so a LANFREE back-up works using TSM's

> LANFREE technology.  Since the topology is conventional you should 
> also be able to add a SAN Data Gateway and do a "server free backup".

> The key is that a VTL is just a conventional fiber connected library 
> with really fast robotics and drives. Yes, you do need to make sure 
> that the VTL plays nice with TSM, so make sure your choice in VTL is
TSM certified.
>
> H. Milton Johnson
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf 
> Of Mark D. Rodriguez
> Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 10:43 PM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: direct attached disk (DAS) at a tape library?
>
> Johnson, Milton wrote:
>
> > I am not quite sure what you meant by "with TSM you can use disk 
> >only for backups instead of onsite tape".  I do not see any reason 
> >why you can not use FILE device types for both primary and copypool
stg pools.
> >Of course if you actually want to move a copy of the data offsite, 
> >then
>
> >you would need some type of removable media such as tape.
> >
> >For me two of the attractions of a virtual tape library are being 
> >able to do lanfree backups without using Sanergy, and having the VTL 
> >do compression.
> >
> >
> >H. Milton Johnson
> >
> >
> >
> Hi Milton,
>
> I am not sure how you get to do Lan-Free without using Sanergy.  In 
> order to do that wouldn't the VTL have to have some kind of similar 
> code as Sanergy and then the question is does that play nicely with 
> TSM.  Or am I missing something really obvious here?  Please explain 
> how you will get Lan-Free to work in a TSM environment without the
Sanergy code.
>
> Thank You.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Mark D. Rodriguez
> President MDR Consulting, Inc.
>
> ======================================================================
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> The very best in Technical Training and Consulting.
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> RS6000 SP, TSM/ADSM and Linux Red Hat Certified Engineer, RHCE 
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