MSL2024 SCSI or Fibre

[Roy Bihari]

We are running an 2-node Oracle RAC cluster. Currently we have setup 2x DL380, MSA500 and MSL2024 all SCSI connected. The MSL2024 is SCSI connected to one DL380. We would like to move towards Fibre for HA and scalability reasons. Upgrading the MSA500 to fibre seems possible including HBA's for both DL380. How do I upgrade the MSL2024 to fibre? Or can I scsi connect the MSL2024 to both DL380? Hope somebody can help me out.
Regards, Roy

[thomasr · Accepted solution]

A parallel SCSI-based (pSCSI) drive can only be connected to a single server at a time. That server can act as a backup server to allow it to backup several other systems to the drive, but the backup server will "own" the device, and other servers will be sending data to it over Ethernet.

The MSL2024 can hold one full-height or two half-height drives, and it's easy to add or change drives. FC drives are full-height only. I think the pSCSI drives are full-height, and the SAS are half-height.

The MSL2024 does support partitioning -- if you purchased a pair of half-height SAS drives for it, you could create two logical partitions, with each partition owned by one server. The libraries would be independent, as if it were two physical libraries, and the only sharing of tapes would be manually, by moving a tape from one partition, to the mail slot, and then to the other partition. Perhaps that's enough for you. This solution would probably be cheaper than implementing a Fibre Channel infrastructure, if that is the only thing that's going to be on FC.

You can swap the drive(s) in your MSL2024 with Fibre Channel based drives and then put the library on the SAN.

If you upgrade to LTO-4 tape drives SCSI, SAS, or FC), you can use hardware encryption, either using the backup application to manage the keys, or, more securely, with the Encryption Kit for MSL libraries. HW encryption doesn't affect compressibility of your data, and has virtually no effect on performance. All HP LTO-4 drives support HW encryption, regardless of the interface or which product they work with (standalone, MSL, ESL, EML, ...).

One other thing to keep in mind -- what is your backup application? If you put the library on the SAN and want to share it, you'll need the SAN or Shared Storage option in the backup application. The good news is that then the library will be fully shareable amongst your servers. But investigate the cost before committing yourself. It might be that the traditional backup server mode is good enough... or that SAS drives with a partitioned library does all you need.

I hope this helps clarify the options.

[Curtis Ballard]

That library is compatible with the N1200-320 router for providing Fibre Channel connectivity to parallel SCSI tape libraries. That would work with your existing drives and probably be cheaper that changing drives.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/n12003204gnsr/qa.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

[Roy Bihari]

Thanks for pointing out the various possibilities! Definitely some food for thought. I will study the possibilities and probably get back with some more questions.