What virtualization buys
Virtualizing tape devices allows host applications to access a logical tape drive while a virtual appliance accesses actual physical tape drives. Because the biggest bottleneck in disk-to-tape operations is writing data to tape, virtualization at this level allows logical mounts to be presented to the host whether physical tape drives are available or not. The virtual solutions can gather tape data residing in the disk cache and later write the data to tape, as mainframe tape management systems have done for years.
The biggest drawback to the virtualization products is that they're limited to either mainframe (for example, Bus-Tech, Diligent Technologies Corp., IBM's VTS or StorageTek's VSM) or open systems (for example, Advanced Digital Information Corp.'s Pathlight VX, Data Domain Inc.'s DD200, EMC's Clariion Disk Library or Quantum Corp.'s DX100). These systems aren't used for sharing but for enabling separate backup domains by OS or application platform. They're point solutions that improve backup windows and speed recovery time, but they don't provide simultaneous sharing.
Another drawback is that duplicate virtual appliances are needed at the disaster recovery site to recover data, and these devices are typically pricey. They may also require purchasing backup software upgrades. For example, Veritas charges by the number of tape drives (real or virtual) needed, so a 40-drive virtual environment at $3,000 per drive would cost $120,000. Veritas also adds $2,000 for a SAN-shared drive. If the 40 virtual drives were shared, the total cost would be $200,000.
Jeff Hackling, vice president of systems support at Global Payments Inc. in Atlanta, runs a data center with almost every major host type--mainframe, Unix, Windows, AS/400 and Tandem. "Thus far, Global has not pursued tape resource sharing," Hackling says. But, he adds, "as our open-systems data storage has significantly increased recently--from 2TB to 25TB--we may need to look at tape sharing."
Limits to tape sharing
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Virtualize tape devices |
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Centralized and heterogeneous tape virtualization enables the consolidation of multiplatform tape configurations where common backup/archiving policies can be set, tape devices can be managed easily and physical resources can be shared more effectively.
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The key to tape sharing is the ability to establish static mount points so that only one system can read/write to one tape at a time. The process of mounting/dismounting tape drives is time consuming. With disk arrays, several hosts can simultaneously access a set of disks and while each obtains the data it requested, the context switching is transparent to the host. This is impossible with current tape technologies because when host systems need access to the same set of tapes or tape drives, each must wait until the previous request has completed. In this scenario, aggregate data rate transfers drop dramatically, often to fewer than 100KB/sec.
Another operational risk for arrays and ATLs posed by multiplatform support is the need to quiesce the system to update microcode. When this occurs, some or all of the attached hosts are impacted. Every attempt to upgrade shared ATLs or tape drives requires coordination between mainframe, Unix and Windows groups. Array vendors have overcome this limitation by minimizing or eliminating these disruptive microcode upgrades so that elaborate coordination is no longer necessary.
Even sharing ATLs among open systems can be difficult. Brian Estes, lead systems engineer at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, has Unix, Windows and NetWare in his shop. "We haven't had much luck with integrating NetWare into our Unix/Windows backup environment," he says. "We tried a couple of times, but the backups become unstable when ATL changes are made so we had to segment NetWare from all other systems."
