HP 12000 HP VLS Solutions Guide Design Guidelines for Virtual Library Systems - Page 38

Operating System Tape Configuration, Microsoft® Windows - drivers

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• Reducing the time it takes to debug and resolve anomalies in the backup/restore environment. • Reducing the potential for conflict with untested third-party products. Zoning may not always be required for configurations that are already small or simple. Typically the bigger the SAN, the more zoning is needed. HP recommends the following for determining how and when to use zoning. • Small fabric (16 ports or less) may not need zoning. If no zoning is used, make sure that the virtual tape external Fibre Channel connections resides in the lowest ports of the switch. • Small to medium fabric (16 - 128 ports) can use host-centric zoning. Host-centric zoning is implemented by creating a specific zone for each server or host, and adding only those storage elements to be utilized by that host. Host-centric zoning prevents a server from detecting any other devices on the SAN or including other servers, and it simplifies the device discovery process. • Disk and tape on the same pair of HBAs is supported along with the coexistence of array multipath software (no multipath to tape, but coexistence of the multipath software and tape devices). • Large fabric (128 ports or more) can use host-centric zoning and split disk and tape targets. Splitting disk and tape targets from being in the same zone together will help to keep the tape controllers free from discovering disk controllers which it does not need to see. For optimal performance, where practical, dedicate HBAs for disk and tape. NOTE: Overlapping zones are supported. Operating System Tape Configuration Enterprise backup applications generally support media agents (which communicate with tape and virtual tape devices) on various operating systems to provide a heterogeneous enterprise backup environment. The VLS products support many of these operating system variations. (The EBS Compatibility Matrix available at http://www.hp.com/go/ebs details which operating systems with each backup application are supported by VLS). The Enterprise Backup Solutions Design Guide available at the same web location has detailed instructions and best practices for configuring the tape drivers for the following operating systems: • HP-UX • Microsoft® Windows • Tru64 UNIX® • Linux • NetWare • Sun Solaris • IBM AIX When adding a VLS virtual library to a server running a media agent, you must: • Ensure that the minimum operating system patches are installed. • Configure the Fibre Channel HBAs in the operating system which generally means configuring persistent binding so that the virtual library device LUNs are always presenting on the same SCSI path regardless of SAN configuration changes. • For Fibre Channel HBAs in the backup servers, disable any that have the TARGET RESET mode enabled by default (for example, Qlogic 4Gb PCI-E HBA on Linux). Otherwise, this will cause backup failures across multiple drives when a target reset is performed. • Detect the virtual tape drives and create the tape drive device paths (generally the virtual tape robot is discovered and configured by the backup application itself rather than the operating 38 Backup Solution Design Considerations

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•
Reducing the time it takes to debug and resolve anomalies in the backup/restore environment.
•
Reducing the potential for conflict with untested third-party products.
Zoning may not always be required for configurations that are already small or simple. Typically
the bigger the SAN, the more zoning is needed. HP recommends the following for determining
how and when to use zoning.
•
Small fabric (16 ports or less) may not need zoning. If no zoning is used, make sure that the
virtual tape external Fibre Channel connections resides in the lowest ports of the switch.
•
Small to medium fabric (16 - 128 ports) can use host-centric zoning. Host-centric zoning is
implemented by creating a specific zone for each server or host, and adding only those storage
elements to be utilized by that host. Host-centric zoning prevents a server from detecting any
other devices on the SAN or including other servers, and it simplifies the device discovery
process.
•
Disk and tape on the same pair of HBAs is supported along with the coexistence of array
multipath software (no multipath to tape, but coexistence of the multipath software and tape
devices).
•
Large fabric (128 ports or more) can use host-centric zoning and split disk and tape targets.
Splitting disk and tape targets from being in the same zone together will help to keep the tape
controllers free from discovering disk controllers which it does not need to see. For optimal
performance, where practical, dedicate HBAs for disk and tape.
NOTE:
Overlapping zones are supported.
Operating System Tape Configuration
Enterprise backup applications generally support media agents (which communicate with tape
and virtual tape devices) on various operating systems to provide a heterogeneous enterprise
backup environment. The VLS products support many of these operating system variations. (The
EBS Compatibility Matrix
available at
h
t
tp://w
w
w
.hp
.co
m/go/eb
s
details which operating systems
with each backup application are supported by VLS). The
Enterprise Backup Solutions Design
Guide
available at the same web location has detailed instructions and best practices for configuring
the tape drivers for the following operating systems:
•
HP-UX
•
Microsoft® Windows
•
Tru64 UNIX®
•
Linux
•
NetWare
•
Sun Solaris
•
IBM AIX
When adding a VLS virtual library to a server running a media agent, you must:
•
Ensure that the minimum operating system patches are installed.
•
Configure the Fibre Channel HBAs in the operating system which generally means configuring
persistent binding so that the virtual library device LUNs are always presenting on the same
SCSI path regardless of SAN configuration changes.
•
For Fibre Channel HBAs in the backup servers, disable any that have the TARGET RESET mode
enabled by default (for example, Qlogic 4Gb PCI-E HBA on Linux). Otherwise, this will cause
backup failures across multiple drives when a target reset is performed.
•
Detect the virtual tape drives and create the tape drive device paths (generally the virtual tape
robot is discovered and configured by the backup application itself rather than the operating
38
Backup Solution Design Considerations