Re: Virtual tape - size and saving

I could ask you more questions but really it comes down to asking your BP
what would 'work' and what could be done with what you have. For example,
WRKHDWRSC *STG and what kind of controller is driving that tape drive.
Could it drive a LTO 3? Could you get two of them to drive two different
tape drives in the same tape library? If you already have a SAN switch
(or are looking at one) is now the time to consider going fiber instead?

For example you could get a 3573-L2U with two drives but I think the
lowest you could go is LTO3. This will read and write LTO2 tapes but
would only read LTO1. LTO3 tapes would give you more capacity and speed.
That's another consideration, moving to newer generation LTO tapes could
reduce your backup window. Somewhere there's a speed comparison chart.
IDK if you're still fitting everything on one LTO2 tape but the newer ones
also hold more. Used LTO3 tapes are pretty cheap - I should know as we've
recently sold a few hundred on the used market. There you go, save to the
faster LTO3 and dup to the LTO2's for offsite? And when you do DUPMEDBRM
then WRKOBJBRM will show you both the original tape holding the data and
the duplicate media.



Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Jeff Crosby <jlcrosby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Date: 10/01/2013 08:12 AM
Subject: Re: Virtual tape - size and saving
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx



3581, LTO2, SCSI



On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 7:20 AM, <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jeff,

First, what kind of 3580 do you have? LTO1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6?

What kind of connection does it have: SCSI, fiber?

I would think that a 3573-L2U with two drives would go pretty cheap on

the

used market today. We have a 3573-L2U with a single LTO3 scsi drive in
that we have no use for that we're going to toss in on the trade in when
we upgrade from Power 6 to Power 7 NLT next quarter.
A library like that handle duping quite nice. We have a 3573-L4U with
four LTO4 fiber drives in Garrett that did a bang up job duping tapes

from

LTO3 to LTO4 and BRMS handled it well.

Then again, some of the other players on the list are pushing VTL
appliances which will give you your local tape for quick restores and

then

give you a remote duplication elsewhere. Some have their own software
(which rather scares me). Others simply emulate existing tape libraries
and play well with BRMS.

I would think that the save to tape would be faster than the save to

disk

since LTO is no slouch in the speed department and will be using a
different controller than your disk controller.


Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Jeff Crosby <jlcrosby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Date: 09/30/2013 04:38 PM
Subject: Re: Virtual tape - size and saving
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx



Not exactly. We currently have 2 3580's. We're looking into online
backup
and going down to a single tape drive. Being anal-retentive, even with
online backup, I may decide that one day a week I want to do a local

full

backup. I could do that local backup to the tape drive, then dup it to
virtual, then dup it back to another tape on the same tape drive and

have

an offsite copy.

My guess is the initial backup to the physical tape drive would be

faster

than to virtual.


On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Richard Schoen
<richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

Jeff,

Are you thinking of using them for virtual tape backups ?

I'm still trying to determine the value over saving and FTPing save

files.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
Where Information Meets Innovation
Document Management, Workflow, Report Delivery, Forms and Business
Intelligence
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 736-5800
Fax: (952) 736-5801
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT


------------------------------

message: 2
date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 15:04:48 -0400
from: Jeff Crosby <jlcrosby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Virtual tape - size and saving

All,

Doing some refreshing on virtual tape. I did some testing a couple of
years ago and decided at that time not to use it. Now I might.

What's the maximum size for a virtual volume? This page
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1019030 suggests

it's

1TB. Is that right? (Assuming you have that much available space to

begin

with.) Does it just expand automatically as you're saving to it?

Also, I've used image catalogs for what seems like forever and love

them.

All of mine are under '/ImageCatalogs'. I've always told BRMS to

omit

'/ImageCatalogs' in saves. If I read it correctly on that same link

above,

it says I can achieve the same results by doing "CHGATR
OBJ('/ImageCatalogs') ATR(*ALWSAV) VALUE(*NO)" I can't believe I

haven't

noticed that before. Do the rest of you have it set to *ALWSAV *NO?

Will

I need to do it on every folder within /ImageCatalogs or will doing it

on

the parent folder suffice?

Thanks.

--
Jeff Crosby
VP Information Systems
UniPro FoodService/Dilgard
P.O. Box 13369
Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
260-422-7531
www.dilgardfoods.com

The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinion of

my

company. Unless I say so.


------------------------------


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Jeff Crosby
VP Information Systems
UniPro FoodService/Dilgard
P.O. Box 13369
Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
260-422-7531
www.dilgardfoods.com

The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinion of my
company. Unless I say so.
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This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing
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--
Jeff Crosby
VP Information Systems
UniPro FoodService/Dilgard
P.O. Box 13369
Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
260-422-7531
www.dilgardfoods.com

The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinion of my
company. Unless I say so.
--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing
list
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