Forum Discussion

Earth_Juice's avatar
Earth_Juice
Level 2
14 years ago

Can't configure Dell TL2000 as a robotic library

Hi,

I have a fibre connected tape drive (Dell TL2000) that I'm trying to configure with a Windows Server 2008 running as a VMWare virtual machine.

I've added the SCSI device and the drive is showing under Device manager as a tape drive, but I'm not seeing a medium changer.  Backup Exec 12.5 is showing the drive under the device pool, but I can't seem to get it under robotic libraries.

I've tried downloading and installing the dell drivers on the windows session, then switching back to the symantec tape drivers.  Restarted the server, etc.

The tape drive is around two years old, worked fine under a windows server 2003 installation with BE 12.5 across fibre.

Any ideas?

Best Regards,

S'

Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Configuring
Managing Backup Devices
  • AmolB's avatar
    AmolB
    14 years ago

    BE will not show the medium chagner untill Windows does not detect it.

    Without the medium changer the tape device will appear under standalone device.

  • ZeRoC00L's avatar
    ZeRoC00L
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    I don't think connecting a fibre channel tape is supported to connect to a VM.

    How is the VM ever going to see the tapelibrary? It has no (virtual) fibre-card.

  • Earth_Juice's avatar
    Earth_Juice
    Level 2
    14 years ago

    Actually it does...shows up as a scsi device like on the old physical machine.  You just need to expose the fibre to the VM on the host.

    I did get a step further by removing the reference to the old server (this is step one in a 12.5 to 2010 upgrade, namely relocating to a new server, same BE level, trying the OS upgrade too tho...).

    It's now showing in BE as a stand-alone drive...rebooting to see if that helps...

  • AmolB's avatar
    AmolB
    Moderator
    14 years ago

    BE will not show the medium chagner untill Windows does not detect it.

    Without the medium changer the tape device will appear under standalone device.

  • Earth_Juice's avatar
    Earth_Juice
    Level 2
    14 years ago

    Thanks for that AmolZeroCool!!!

    I went back to the vmware console, found there was a second SCSI device to add...the media.

    Medium changer is now showing under windows...

    After adding that the library is showing under robotic libraries with the tapes!

    Best regards,

    S'

  • teiva-boy's avatar
    teiva-boy
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    Ultimately, device mapping to virtual guests has always been problematic.  While it can work, it can also be difficult to troubleshoot.

    S', if you find the need to contact technical support from Symantec, and during the troubleshooting they cant find a resolution, they may flat out tell you one of the following:

    1.  You are in an unsupported config, we cant help you.

    2. Convert to a physical host, then call us back when you're done.

     

    We're still not at the point where we can virtualize everything, and backup hosts that need physical device access to SCSI, is one of those reasons.