Re: Thoughts on VTL solutions

I work a LOT with both ETI SPHiNX and with the Cybernetics VTLs. I have also worked with Dell/EMC units.

40TB of RAID storage is very cheap today and easily supported by all three of these vendors without the complication and expense of SAN for storage.

All support Fiber connectivity and the SPHiNX and Cybernetics units support SAS as well.

While I'm not sure you could directly connect any of these to the Protectier and migrate directly you can certainly connect to IBM i and use DUPTAP or the BRMS equivalent to dup the tapes to the new unit you select.

For the user interface I prefer the SPHiNX. I find it simpler and more intuitive to use. Reliable system and good support.

If you want to replicate your data to a remote site for automatic off-site backups then the Cybernetics unit is your choice. Their deduplication technology can end up sending your nightly backup between sites in 15 minutes! (Of course YMMV!) Of course thie means your local backups are deduplicated as well and thus consume vastly less storage as well.

Both the SPHiNX and Cybernetics units are available in various sizes of rack-mounted units from 1 to 4 U, redundant power, various RAID selections and generally use 7.2K RPM SAS drives (You NEVER want to use SATA drives in RAID. Don't do it)

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

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

On 5/8/2020 9:40 PM, Laurence Chiu wrote:

On a project to setup a brand new Power system, migrating an application
from an existing application.

The current setup has ProtecTier VTL but that's not available in the new
setup of course.

From a business point of view we need to migrate across some 22TB of VTL

backups from ProtecTier to the new VTL.

Talking to IBM they have recommended we purchase DSI based VTL's because
- it's the only VTL they certify
- They can connect the DSI units to ProtecTier and suck all the backups
across over FC (on prem) or FC over IP if we want to do it remotely
- all the BRMS metadata would be maintained

Their pricing would stretch our budget somewhat so I have gone looking at
other solutions. Looking at this article there seem to be at least 5 VTL
solutions that are available.

https://www.helpsystems.com/resources/articles/virtual-tape-considerations-ibm-i


I don't know what certified or approved by IBM means but if the VTL
solutions just look like tape drives to IBMi, then does it matter? The
vendor can provide the support if required.

Another vendor with whom I have been discussion says they can do exactly
the same. Connect their appliance over FC to ProtecTier and duplicate the
backups and maintain metadata. We would deploy their appliance and use an
IBM Storwize V5030 SAN with 12 4TB SATA drives for the VTL storage for
about 40TB in RAID 6 . They are only 7.2K drives but fast enough for a VTL
I would think. The pricing here is quite attractive.

I am sure not all shops presented on this list are using DSI so just
wondering what people are using and their experiences.

Thanks