Greetings all.

I'm in a bit of a bind here.  We're installing a set of IBM Power7 servers and 
will be using VIO Server 2.1.2 for handling Ethernet and FC functions (SAN disk 
and tape).  Each chassis will have 2 VIO Server LPARs.  Each VIO Server LPAR 
will have 2 dual-port 8Gbps FC cards.  1 card in each VIO Server is designated 
for providing both fabric A and B access to SAN disk resources  to the virtual 
client LPARs via virtual HBAs and NPIV.  Thus, each virtual client LPAR will 
see 4 disk devices for each LUN, to be managed either by Hitachi HDLM or native 
AIX MPIO.  No worries there, we do this already.

Our "problem" is with the tape devices.  My shared storage group is telling me 
that if we set up one of the virtual client LPARs as a dedicated storage node, 
it will only be able to make use of a single (in this case virtual) HBA and 
tape device.  Is this true?  Can a Networker storage node truly only back up 
over a single HBA?  

Our production databases are projected to exceed 2TB in a few years, and 20TB 
in development.  To get this backed up in a semi-resaonable amount of time, I'm 
thinking we need to use more than 1 HBA.

Can anyone confirm or disprove the "single HBA theory"?

+----------------------------------------------------------------------
|This was sent by doug.eckert AT dowjones DOT com via Backup Central.
|Forward SPAM to abuse AT backupcentral DOT com.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to 
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this 
list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER