FiberChannel to Ethernet Converters

[BDMcGrew]

Greetings, again!

Has anyone ever had any kind of good luck with FiberChannel to Ethernet converters; maybe something similar to this Perle box (https://www.perle.com/products/gigabit-managed-media-converters.shtml)? I know Perle is a decent company, we use their USB to Serial boxes all the time.

Reason I'm asking is I need to add a tape library into my setup and I've found a refurbished Dell LTO4 auto loader with 2 drives but it's FC. I'm not setup for FC, don't really want the expense of implementing it and all my single-slot servers are full of quad port network cards so I also have no place for an FC card.

And if they work, will TSM play nicely with it? I'm running TSM 6.3 on CentOS 6 inside and ESXi 6 HA cluster. All of my stg is disk based and everything runs super smooth. My decv filedev1 points to a couple places out in my storage array and it's just all working.

If I add a FC library on an Ethernet media converter, will it work with TSM?

The idea is of course, move the data out of the building... So, anyone, ever done something like this?

 

[moon-buddy]

The only comment I have (since I have not worked with a system like this) is - "does all of the FC command get translated?" How will TSM see the incoming "converted FC" traffic, and how will TSM interface with a network card and look at it as a FC card?

Given how TSM will see the system - it has to see the network card as a FC card - I believe, this setup is not possible.

 

[BDMcGrew]

Yeah, again, good point --- how do you tell TSM to go talk to this FC library via the Ethernet. Probably not an esay thing to do.

So my next question, here: https://adsm.org/forum/index.php?threads/remote-tape-library.30531/

Can I use a library on a remote TSM server?

-brian

 

[moon-buddy]

Yes, you can use a remote library that is FC-attached to a TSM server via server-to-server communications. The remote TSM server is the Library Manager while the one accessing is the Client.

Done that before.