Re: VTLs and backup time

[Laurence Chiu <lchiu7@xxxxxxxxx>]

Just to throw in another point of view. We use DSI VTL's

https://www.dynamicsolutions.com/products-solutions/ibm/brva-vtl/mid-range/#fndtn-nav-137

connected to both production Power 8 and in another DC a DR/DEV Power 9.
Backups taken via BRMS are automatically sync'ed to the remote VTL. No
physical tape used apart from the occasional read of data from external
sources.

But reading the specs I see the DSI VTL's have an optional SAS tape
interface. That suggests you could do a back to the VTL and then use the
VTL software to take a copy to physical tape for your air gap and not
bother with connecting another LPAR.

As for one VTL being accessed by more than one LPAR we do this regularly by
having separate FC cards for each LPAR going to the FC director and then
patched to different ports on the VTL. I think we could do better with VIOS
but we were moving a legacy infrastructure and didn't have time to setup
VIOS but just throw hardware at the solution :-)

On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 4:40 AM Gad Miron <gadmiron@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello sages
>
> As our nightly Prod machine backup time has grown to 7 hours
> ( SAVLIB *ALLUSER to one stand-alone LTO7 3580 tape )
> We look into VTL to speed things up.
> But, we must backup to tape also (air gap and such)
> So, I think of this scenario:
> a. get a VTL and connect it to both the Prod machine and the Dev machine
> b. run the same nightly Prod machine backup to a VTL
> c. during the day after , use DUPTAP on the Dev machine
>    to duplicate the Prod backup to tape .(the Dev machine has a 3580 Tape
> also)
>
> Now:
> Is a back up to a VTL much faster then tape?
> Can a VTL be directly connected to 2 machines so that a DUPTAP can be done?
>
>
> TIA
> Gad