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matt077's avatar
matt077
Level 5
15 years ago

Tape library with FC and SAS drives being shared by two systems


Can any one help me

I have a tape library with 2 SAS and 2 FC drives which will be used by two systems, one system using the SAS drives and the other system using the FC drives

What i'm trying to work out is how the system using the FC drives will tell the robotic library arm where to place tapes? (can see the drive fine but no arm), the system using the SAS drives is the main backup exec system and will work the robotic library arm

Many thanks

12.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Backup Exec (media server only)
SAN Shared Storage Option
  • matt077's avatar
    matt077
    15 years ago

    after logging a call with the support team, they have told me that the arm needs to be seen in windows from both systems and that i need SAN Shared storage option installed

    the system using the FC drives cant see the arm but can see the drives in device manager

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  • matt077's avatar
    matt077
    Level 5
    15 years ago
    Save cost where need be is great so RAWS agent sounds good, any more info on this? e.g set up guides etc?
  • matt077's avatar
    matt077
    Level 5
    15 years ago

    take it i need to be reading page 1632 of the admin guide?
  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    A couple of comments

    1) CASO and/or SSO is needed if you want to share a library between servers (strangely CASO will work without SSO but due to a licensing quirk you still should own the SSO licenses even if you don't enable it)

    2) For a library to operate in a shared mode between 2 Backup Exec servers the robotic arm of the library must be conncted to both servers (which is usually done over SAN zoning)

  • matt077's avatar
    matt077
    Level 5
    15 years ago

    thanks guys for all your comments, its the 1st time i'm doing something like this (and could be the last ;-) )

    for the fc drives, they be going over the SAN as a zone to the system but will need some kind of way to drive the arm to stick tapes in the FC drives e.g getting system2 to talk to system1 which will drive the arm via SAS
  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    ...I think that is where the problem will lie. You can share the robotics and 2 drives between the SAN-attached servers, but the server using the SAS drives will have the issue...and possibly cause issues with the other servers as they fight for contention with the robotic arm.
  • matt077's avatar
    matt077
    Level 5
    15 years ago

    after logging a call with the support team, they have told me that the arm needs to be seen in windows from both systems and that i need SAN Shared storage option installed

    the system using the FC drives cant see the arm but can see the drives in device manager
  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    Yep...otherwise the first server to access the robotics has control...put that option into a 60-day trial if available to verify that it will work before buying the license!