Which Autoloader with Portal(s) exports without intervention - BE 2010

[Kirk_Unruh]

Hi and thanks for any help you can provide.

I'm looking to buy a new LTO-5 Autoloader. We have a Dell 122T LTO-2 that's being replaced which has never been able to export media without user intervention.  With the purchase of a new autoloader, I hope to be able to export media automatically.

It seems that there aren't any autoloaders that I can find which are capable of automatically spitting out tapes to a hopper or mail slot once a backup job is completed.  The forums are full of discussions where people want to have the media ejected from the autoloader so that a courier (or non technical person) can grab the tape(s) without having to push any buttons, then take them off-site, yet there is no list of devices that are capable of doing this.

According to Quantum support, the Quantum SuperLoader does not support this even though it has mail slots.  And from other tech articles and/or forum posts, the following units also don't fulfill this requirement.
Dell 124T
Overland Neo2000
HP StorageWorks 1/8

 Anyone using an autoloader that can help me?  Thanks!!
 

[pkh]

As long as the autoloader has an I/O or mailslot, you can use the export function.  Just check with the manufacturer.  If an autoloader has a mailslot (HP's terminology) and the mailslot is enabled, you can use a policy with a backup template and an export template to generate a backup and an export job.  Normally, the export job is set to run immediately after the backup job.  What will happen is that after the backup, the export job will place the tape that was just used in the mailslot.  This export function have to be set up in BE and it has nothing to do with the autoloader.

To remove the tape from the mailslot, the user needs to open it.  For HP autoloader, it is a matter of pressing a button on the front panel twice.  This is the amount of user invention in my case.  I don't know what level of user intervention that you are talking about.

[Kirk_Unruh]

Thanks for the reply pkh!

I understand the process and the programming of a template to export the media automatically from BE.  
My problem is with finding out which hardware has the capability to finalize the export process with no user intervention.

After an export, I want BE to be able to run the next job in line without somebody having to acknowledge a BE alert or to physically push menu buttons on the autoloader in order to get a tape out.  It would be just like a standalone drive if you set 'Eject media after job completion'.  

Your process to eject the mail slot sounds fairly easy. Would you please tell me what model of HP autoloader you're using?

Thanks again,
Kirk

[pkh · Accepted solution]

I am using a MSL2024.

When the export job runs, there will be an alert asking you to remove the tape from the mailslot.  If you ignore the alert, it will time out after 20 minutes.  If you have jobs that need to use the tape library, then this 20 minutes is wasted time and there is no way to shorten it.  After the alert timed out, then jobs that need the library can start running again as it library is no longer held by the export job.  All this does not affect jobs which backs up to disk.  They run without interference.

My export runs in the middle of the night so there is no user intervention then.  I only remove the tape in the morning.  Normally BE will lock the library.  You would have to schedule/run an unlock job before you can open the mailslot.

All the above is applicable for all tape libraries.