Using Native Fibre drives on HP/9000 N-Class servers.

[Wim-Bart van der Waals]

When a tape drive is supported as SCSI device under HP-UX 10 or 11 and has the software for it to operate under these OS'es to use in a SAN.

The goal is to use Atempo Time navigator 3.6 under HP-UX. This backupsoftware can work with the tapedrive without any problem. Now there is a FC Equivalent of the drive. Can this drive be used the same way as the SCSI equivalent or does it need specialized code to enable it or are the drives just mapped the same way under the /dev branch as the SCSI equivalent.

[David Navarro]

Hi. You ned to validate if that software is supported for work in SAN. If not, you can use device file of the backup drive.

[Wim-Bart van der Waals]

David,

This helped me a lot. What I understand is that if Atempo Time Navigator supports SAN backup (which it does) it should work.

But on the other hand, it is also possible to use the device files for these devices as if it where just SCSI-3 devices eg: tape and library.

Can somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

Under NT 4, Win2K and Novell we do the same, just using the SCSI Tape and Library drivers and there it works without flaws.

Wim-Bart

[David Navarro · Accepted solution]

Hi. Yes, is correct. I not fully understand SAN management for SAN purpouses. I think that a soft supported for SAN is able to manage, like a semaphore the utilitation of the tape, because it can be used for many servers, but obviusly, not at the same time.
But in the other hand, if you have a SAN and you can take the control of who is using tape in such moment. Then you can use directly the drive using the device file.
Can someone verify if i'm true or not?