Q:OpenVMS v7.3-1 & SDLT600 (MSL6026) on SAN for VMS backup

[Hejib]

We looking to buy a MSL6026 SDLT600 tape library and we'll connect it to our SAN, but I'm trying to get confirmation that regular VMS backup will work with it. (OpenVMs v7.3-1 at the moment.)
I'm also chasing this via offical means, but that's takng a looong time.
Is anyone out there running this config?

thanks in advance!

REGards.

[Uwe Zessin]

I think you have to upgrade to V7.3-2, because V7.3-1 is no longer supported and/or there is no FC tape support in V7.3-1, but I am not fully sure - it's been some years now since I talked to an engineer who was working on initial FC tape support.

BACKUP will work fine with FC attached tapes as long as OpenVMS can configure the device. It does a persistent binding managed in SYS$DEVICES.DAT based on the drive's serial numer, but there was a problem in the initial release which required a reboot to make the device available, if I remember correctly.

Unfortunately, you can't write such a file to CD-ROM and reboot ;-) That has been fixed later on - it is always a good idea to have a locally-attached disk with an operating system that is current on patch levels.

[Rob Crooks]

I asked the same question a few months ago and didn't receive an answer I could use.

The problem is that trusty old VMS backup seems to have no way of communicating with the library changer itself. There seem to be some enterprise-level products from HP that can do this, but for extra $$$$.

If you compare to a product like NetBackup, you can devide the slots into groups, tell the backup to use a certain slot, etc. No can do with VMSBACKUP.

I tried my Quantum library on my DS20 and wasn't impressed. Aside from seeing 2 SCSI devices (I know you are talking about a SAN), it wouldn't do anything until I manually loaded (through the front panel) a tape.

Very useless.


I would say something derogatory about VMS here, but I think I might get linched....

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

We have it connected to the node instead of the SAN.

This because we have (working) backups scripts running and didn't want a new system for SAN backups.

I you take SAN backups, I wonder :
1) how do you know that there are no open files
2) how do you know that no files were deleted/created during backup (disk must be stable)
3) how do you test that required files are present (e.g. db dumps)

We have all these controls (and others) in place and wouldn't like to loose them.

Wim

[Hejib]

Hi,thanks for the replies so far.

V7.3-1 does talk to FC tapes, perhaps not as well as v7.3-2, but we can't upgrade just yet.

We use the MRU product (robot commands etc.), with some command procedures - works o.k.

Our use of the SAN capability is more for making the library/drive available to multiple systems & we still drive backup via the host, not within the SAN.

My key question is can vms 7.3-1 recognize a SDLT600 & init tapes upon it...

Cheers.

[Terry Lykens · Accepted solution]

Graham,

We're using MSL6026's w/SDLT600s and MRU with no problems on VMS 7.3. We use TAPESYS for backups.

-Terry

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Note that TAPESYS is pay-software.
Any price indication ?

I could be li(y)nched too but something is missing in VMS.

Wim

[Hejib]

Thank you for your response(s).

[Jan van den Ende]

Graham,

MRU communicates via REQUESTs (to OPCOM).
Catch those requests and reply to them.

Poor-mans solution:
Start LAT.
Create an LTA device.
Enable that LTA device for the TAPES Opcom messages.
Launch a detached proces that periodically (less than your acceptable tape wait period) reads the LTA.
If MRU message, REPLY to it with relevant command.

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Tom O'Toole]

You don't absolutely need to access the robot to do backups with these libraries. If you put the library in split sequential mode, load up the magazines, and manually load thedrives from the first slot, each dismount/unload will load the next tape in the magazine. Works great!