On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 05:09:37 -0400, Gaddy <xy.0815 AT GMX DOT NET> wrote:

>We have tested last week
>Qlogic new SANsurfer (SANBlade Manager) V2.0.24
>and (IMHO) persistent binding works perfectly
>(altough it seems that this is
>the 1st working version ever for Win*)

Well that's good to know.

>
>But persistent binding has not been any help
>in our Windows NetWorker environment :-(
>With persistent binding you'll able to bind
>WWPNs to SCSI-addresses (that's what it is made for)
>NetWorker unfortunately uses DriveNames
>in the form of "\\.\TapeX", and Windows
>will generate these names independently
>from SCSI adresses
>(i.e.: if you lose one tape, after reboot
>  the SCSI adresses are still O.K.,
>  but the "\\.\TapeX"-names may have changed)

Not strictly true. As you say, the mapping from WWPN to device name is a
two stage process. Persistent binding sews up the bit from WWPN to SCSI
address, so by doing this you have reduced the chances of devices moving
around. As you say there will be a problem if you lose a device between
reboots, and this is because of the short-sighted design of Windows. It is
undesirable to re-map all available tape drives on every reboot, it would
be better to do this only on demand, like Solaris does (devfsadm -c tape).
Of course the same problem occurs in pure SCSI environments, but it is
probably less likely to cause a problem.

There is currently no way round this ludicrous problem using NetWorker 6.
You could read up on the device serialisation functionality of NetWorker 7,
I believe Legato have worked around the bad design of the OS and taken a
new approach, avoiding Windows device names altogether. I don't have
experience of this yet, perhaps someone could fill in some details?

--
Note: To sign off this list, send a "signoff networker" command via email
to listserv AT listmail.temple DOT edu or visit the list's Web site at
http://listmail.temple.edu/archives/networker.html where you can
also view and post messages to the list.
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=