HP VS80 DLT VS80 Tape Drive User's Guide - Page 58

novell netware frequently asked questions http://www.hp.com/support/tape may have a later version hp learning products data protection drivers FAQs windows NT netware unix - SCO unix - linux frequently asked questions "What is the difference between NWPA and the old DDFS ".dsk" architecture, and which architecture is supported by which versions of NetWare?" contents of this section related topics novell's policy on new systems rationale the layered driver approach tape class drivers NWPA minimum recommended patch level dynamic loading / unloading of drivers back to list of questions next question This topic is available in English only novell's policy on new systems As of Jan 1st 1999, Novell's policy is to only certify new systems if they are compliant with the NWPA driver architecture (that is, SCSI controller drivers with the ".ham" file extension, and tape and ASPI drivers with the ".cdm" file extension). The NWPA driver architecture can be used with NetWare 3.12 / 4.11, (providing the appropriate patches have been loaded - see http://support.novell.com/misc/patlst.htm) and with NetWare 3.2 / 4.2 and 5.x. The NWPA driver architecture replaces the DDFS monolithic ".dsk" driver architecture used with NetWare 3.x and NetWare 4.x. The DDFS driver architecture is not supported by NetWare 5.x. rationale Novell introduced NWPA with NetWare 4.x, as an alternative to the DDFS driver architecture (which originated as a way of controlling disk drives - hence the driver extension ".dsk"). It enabled NetWare to easily and dynamically support a wide range of peripheral devices - something not so easily achieved with the "monolithic" DDFS architecture. the layered driver approach NWPA has been designed from the ground-up to dynamically support many different devices. It uses a layered driver structure, as used in many other operating systems. This allows different abstractions of devices to be used at various layers in the driver stack. For example, for SCSI tape drives, at the lowest level would be (one or more) SCSI Host Bus Adapter (HBA) driver(s). These drivers have the extension ".ham" (standing for host adapter module). On top of these would be layered (one or more) Tape Drive driver(s). These drivers have the extension ".cdm" (standing for custom device module - in this case, a tape class driver). tape class drivers Tape Class drivers are mainly used by Novell's own backup applications SBackup for NetWare 3.x / 4.x) and SBCON for NetWare 5.x. As with the DDFS architecture, Independent Software Vendor (ISV) backup applications tend to use the ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programming Interface) layer to communicate with tape drives. Therefore, when using backup applications such as BackupExec and ArcServeIT, the relevant ASPI layer driver must be loaded in place of the normal tape driver. See the answer to the question "How do I know what drivers (DDFS or NWPA) I am using at the moment, and what drivers I need for running tape backups?" for further details. Further services can be layered on top of the class driver modules, such as NetWare 5's Storage Management Services. This is used by NetWare 5's built-in backup application "SBCON", and by many other backup applications, to provide media management abstraction. (Refer to the "SBCON Quick Reference Guide" for full details of Novell's SBCON backup application.) NWPA minimum recommended patch level The main component of NWPA is the NetWare Loadable Module "NWPA.NLM". If your system has this module loaded, then it should support NWPA. For NetWare versions up to 3.12, additional patches will be required before you can upgrade to run NWPA. If you are using NetWare 3.x and 4.x you are advised to upgrade your system to the patch level recommended by Novell's "Minimum Patch List" at http://support.novell.com/misc/patlst.htm. The minimum recommended NWPA patch level for NW3.1x, 3.2 and 4.1x is NWPA_UP.EXE, which can be found at the following location: http://developer.novell.com/devres/sas/certinfo.htm. For NW3.12 the NWPA_UP.EXE patch should be uncompressed in the SERVER.312 directory. This also contains patch 312PTD.exe, which should be uncompressed and applied following the instructions given in the accompanying 312PTD.txt file. For NW3.2 all that needs to be done is to uncompress NWPA_UP.EXE in the SERVER.312 directory Note : NetWare 4.1x Support Pack 7, 4.2 and 5.x do not require this patch. dynamic loading / unloading of drivers NWPA supports dynamic loading/unloading of drivers, and will auto-load certain drivers if it recognises supported devices. For example, once an HBA ".ham" driver is loaded, if an operational tape drive is found on the SCSI bus that is supported by the SCSI2TP.CDM (NetWare 3 / NetWare 4) or NWTAPE.CDM (NetWare 4.2 and 5) tape device drivers, NWPA should auto-load the tape device driver. next question Go to the next question "How do I know what drivers (DDFS or NWPA) I am using at the moment, and what drivers I need for running tape backups?" © 1999-2001, Hewlett-Packard Company file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/topher.COL-SPRINGS/Desktop/dltvs80%20manual/document/common/drivers_faqs/eng/nw_q1.htm [11/29/2001 8:35:19 AM]