I don't understand the need for real metal servers other than when you
connect tape or need to do lan-free transport to tape (again, to have
supported connection to tape).
Tape libraries connected to VMware vSphere are not supported (don't know
the current state) but the rest is just software running on an OS, why
would Spectrum Protect need to run on dedicated metal when other software
doesn't?

In my lab setup I even run tape connected on VMware and that works fine
since version 5.5 of VMware, but that isn't supported so don't try and do
that, you can and probably will run into problems at some stage, I have
seen purple screens of death and have seen entire vSphere hosts go down due
to library issues on versions prior to 5.5 in my lab setup :-)

I have implemented Spectrum Protect servers virtualized, it's supported and
it runs fine, just make sure you give it enough resources, you can't treat
it like some small VM and I do give it dedicated storage (both for metadata
and for data capacity and I mean controllers and storage, not just disks)
but then it runs just fine.

The advantage is that you automatically have increased availability due to
VMware HA and have super fast backups for the machines running on the same
physical box.

When it comes to reporting/monitor software I wouldn't think twice about it
if it isn't stated that it is unsupported.


On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 9:51 PM, Vandeventer, Harold [OITS] <
Harold.Vandeventer AT ks DOT gov> wrote:

> I fully understand the need for real metal for the TSM/Spectrum Protect
> node-backup and Operation Center servers.
>
> Is anyone running something relatively benign like 7.1
> Monitoring/Reporting on a VM?
>
> I've got an old physical box, but need to add RAM.
>
> My management is pushing the "why not VM" solution.
>
>
>
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