Directory Container Storagepools on UNC paths?

cmoeller

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PREDATAR Control23

Hey guys,

setting up a smaller SP server in a dependency - it's a Windows (2012 R2) based Spectrum Protect Instance (8.1 currently). Storage is a (Windows) NAS device.

Operations Center will not let me create container directories on UNC paths. Is that a Spectrum Protect or Operations Center limitation? There's no way that storage is ever going to be local so ... I'd have to go with traditional storage pools here.

Which I really don't want, I love the directory container storage pools ...

Any advice?
 
PREDATAR Control23

There's no way that storage is ever going to be local so
You are right, storage is never local. It's however usually SAN attached, and not network attached. People that chose a NAS as a storage device normally acquire an appliance that also performs deduplication like ProtecTIER.
 
PREDATAR Control23

You are right, storage is never local. It's however usually SAN attached, and not network attached. People that chose a NAS as a storage device normally acquire an appliance that also performs deduplication like ProtecTIER.

Well now that we're being precise about it - of course storage can be local. Sure, we may be the only ones in the whole wide world but we do have SP servers that store (parts) of their data on DAS shelves. Doesn't get much more local than that.

That is not the point though. What I would like to know is what IBM actually (officially) supports. Via the CLI I can indeed create container directories on UNC paths, so it is technically possible. Now I do wonder - is it just one of OpCenter's quirks that it doesn't allow this or is that because IBM does not actually support this. In which case I'd have to consider going iSCSI ...
 
PREDATAR Control23

Let me rephrase, it's generally not local when it comes storage pool disks.
 
PREDATAR Control23

You are right, storage is never local. It's however usually SAN attached, and not network attached. People that chose a NAS as a storage device normally acquire an appliance that also performs deduplication like ProtecTIER.

Yes - NAS based devices like Data Domain or ProtecTIER is the choice for such storage techniques. However, I really hate NAS-based specially when these are connected to the TSM Host server via NFS or CIFS. Such connections are not reliable.

Well now that we're being precise about it - of course storage can be local. Sure, we may be the only ones in the whole wide world but we do have SP servers that store (parts) of their data on DAS shelves. Doesn't get much more local than that.

On this note, I have configured TSM Servers for remote locations using Local Disks which would eventually offload to another remote TSM (main) Server and on to tape.

That is not the point though. What I would like to know is what IBM actually (officially) supports. Via the CLI I can indeed create container directories on UNC paths, so it is technically possible. Now I do wonder - is it just one of OpCenter's quirks that it doesn't allow this or is that because IBM does not actually support this. In which case I'd have to consider going iSCSI ...

This works but IBM would not support this. I have tried this during a testing phase but had not moved into Production. I still don't trust OpCenter, though. For me, anything Java based or a derivative of it for Enterprise use is not stable and has limitations. I would prefer to roll out a solid C (or a derivative thereof) based developed admin tool even if the end software size is big and requires its own system.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Hi,
UNC path works fine but there are some caveats to look out for.
The username that runs the ISP/TSM server (instance owner) need to be available on the NAS device also. (no problem if the instance owner and the NAS is part of an AD, else you will have to create a local account in the NAS device having the same password as the local instance user account.
Also, I have seen the NAS device sometimes is case sensitive (many NAS devices run som perverted sort of Linus and emulates SMB/CIFS by using Samba.

HTH
HE
 
PREDATAR Control23

Hey!

Thanks for the input! We've been using NAS as storage in smaller dependencies before so that's not that big a deal, we're running all our TSM servers under domain credentials for that anyways.
Our NAS systems by the way are not really a "box NAS" like Qnap or so but rather Dell PowerEdge Servers running Win2K12R2. They perform quite nicely using 10GB links. Might be because they're overpowered for what they do ...

I've gone ahead and set it up with directory containers on UNC and will test this for some time now ... I'll update if I come across any issues. By the way OpCenter is just fine with UNC paths once you create them via CLI, displays everything just fine. Honestly ... it's a nice design but I can't really warm up to it ...
 
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