Re: Image catalogue not on SSD

Careful there with that broad brush you're using Rob:

> "but their solutions won't allow you to do a bare metal restore from
> it (we have NO physical tape devices) which I've actually done. And
> their solutions often don't play well with BRMS, often requiring
> their backup software. They still sell solutions so
> apparently these limitations are perfectly acceptable to many shops"

You must be speaking of one particular solution here because all the VTLs I am aware of in the IBM i space support BRMS and bare metal IPLs because they emulate IBM tape hardware and do so very well. If you are speaking of known vendors that is a very serious limitatation and I would welcome those vendors being called out.

From my perspective getting into many shops, the two I see the most are EMC and ETI SPHiNX. EMC is excellent hardware and scales to the moon but is way spendy and only connects with fiber - more cost. My favorite is ETI SPHiNX. These guys have models from small to medium and have been doing this for years. They connect with SCSI (for those of you with ancient hardware) SAS and Fiber so more choices and lower cost. Every connectivity will emulate LTO1 to LTO7 tape and tape libraries as well. Bare metal restores are stock and trade and always have been.

As a Bonus ETI supports COMMON by attending and participating in our Expo. That's good for all of us. EMC (now part of Dell) hasn't been there for 5 years. In addition they've let their support for IBM i as a guest of their SAN storage drop since then too. Makes me wonder about their commitment.....


- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 7/29/2018 7:41 AM, Rob Berendt wrote:

Instead of a virtual tape image catalog how's about a virtual tape
library?
We're using one for multiple Power systems. Each with multiple lpars of
IBM i. One physical connection from each Power system (through a SAN
switch).
We also have an lpar of AIX running Tivoli Storage Manager from IBM to
back up all of our PC's, servers, VM systems, etc which uses this as part
of it's hierarchical backup.
Might be a chunk of change for you though. Something to look into.
There might be cheaper vendors than ours but their solutions won't allow
you to do a bare metal restore from it (we have NO physical tape devices)
which I've actually done. And their solutions often don't play well with
BRMS, often requiring their backup software. They still sell solutions so
apparently these limitations are perfectly acceptable to many shops.



Rob Berendt