07-08-2014 09:01 AM
Hi team ,
Can we use Dual port Tape drive with Solaris 11 SPARC server as Master / Media Server?
What are the prerequisites for it & how to configure multipathing for it. ?
I cant disable Solaris MPIO as Storage LUNS are visible on server through it.
Solved! Go to Solution.
07-08-2014 10:17 AM
07-08-2014 10:17 AM
07-08-2014 10:30 AM
Hi mph999 ,
If i disable multipathing on OS , my OS luns would be a problem.
My IT team wants to use both paths of Tape drive to ensure redundancy.
How to achieve this. I am confused.
07-08-2014 10:31 AM
As far as i know Solaris MPIO is only for disks.
There is no way i can use Tape multipathing with MPIO.
For MPIO i has to be dependent on netbackup only..
07-08-2014 10:42 AM
07-08-2014 11:25 AM
What NetBackup sees is ultimately controlled by the sg driver. If you manipulate what is in the sg.links and sg.conf you can make it see what you want it to see.
You agree Martin?
07-08-2014 12:03 PM
i believe its not recommended to use tape drive multipathing in Netbackup.
It will cause a lot of issues.
07-08-2014 01:35 PM
07-09-2014 01:51 AM
Think it can be done through robtest so that NetBackup handles the failover to the alternate path.
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH73944 describes the procedure for mutliple robotic paths
The procedure might cover multiple paths for the tape drives too
07-09-2014 03:21 AM
The robtest 'thing' is for multi path to the robot only.
07-09-2014 06:12 AM
I have problem here also.
I am using SL150 Tape drive & it has only Drive paths to connect.
NO Robot paths.
I think it will go from Drive 1 or Drive 2 in bridged mode.
So incase robot is going from Drive-1 , & its down how come robot will be available?
07-09-2014 07:05 AM
You need to find out from your hardware installation team (or hardware documentation) how exactly the robotic interface is connected.
If internally 'daisy chained', they will probably be presented to the OS as one target with 2 luns (lun 0 and 1).
If anything happens to the swith port, cable, etc, you will need to fix the problem ASAP.
Drive failure should not affect the robot.
07-09-2014 07:19 AM
A quick search reveals Marianne is correct:
Both data and commands are sent to the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or Fibre Channel data interface on a designated Linear Tape Open (LTO) bridged drive. The bridged drive then handles all communications for the library or library partition. Command and control signals are sent to LUN1 (Logical Unit Number 1) of the bridged drive, which is configured as a SCSI medium changer device. The SCSI medium changer communicates with the SL150library controller across the Automation Device Interface (ADI) on the bridged drive. Data are sent to the remaining LUN on the bridged drive or to LUNs on the other, unbridged drives in the partition, all of which are configured as SCSI sequential-access (tape) devices. A default bridged drive is automatically assigned during library and partition configuration.
So the important word here is: designated. I take to mean you can pick any drive you like but you will get a default.. This is what will need addressing should you lose the designated drive. Though the degree of loss may vary from loss of that drive but robotics continue fine to total loss of everything, as also mentioned by MvdB. Jim
07-09-2014 11:17 AM
So in Nutshell ,
1. Multipathing should be disabled for dual port tape drives
2.Netbackup doesnt support Automatic path failover for multipath drives.
3. In case of bridged Tape library , Switch , port or cable to bridged tape drive is single point of failure & there is no way we can make this redundant.
I think i am stuck & fully redundant solution cant be impllemented.
07-09-2014 02:27 PM