DR Series Software 3.2.6 - Administrator Guide

iSCSI or Internet Small Computer System Interface is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for storage subsystems. It is a carrier protocol for SCSI. SCSI commands are sent over IP networks by using iSCSI. It also facilitates data transfers over intranets and to manage storage over long distances. iSCSI can be used to transmit data over LANs or WANs.

In iSCSI, clients are called initiators and SCSI storage devices are targets. The protocol allows an initiator to send SCSI commands (CDBs) to the targets on remote servers. It is a storage area network (SAN) protocol, allowing organizations to consolidate storage into data center storage arrays while providing hosts (such as database and web servers) with the illusion of locally attached disks. Unlike traditional Fibre Channel, which requires different cabling, iSCSI can be run over long distances using existing network infrastructure.

iSCSI is a low-cost alternative to Fibre Channel, which requires dedicated infrastructure except in FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet). Note that the performance of an iSCSI SAN deployment can be degraded if not operated on a dedicated network or subnet

The VTL container type is designed to work seamlessly with the iSCSI protocol. For details, see the topic, Creating Storage Containers.

VTL and DR Series Specifications

This topic describes key specifications of VTL support in the DR Series system.

Supported VTL Types — The DR4X00 and DR6000 Series systems support two types of virtual tape libraries.

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Standard emulation of StorageTek L700 library

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Dell OEM version of the StorageTek L700 library

NOTE: The Dell OEM type VTL is supported only with Symantec Backup Exec and Netbackup data management applications (DMAs).

NOTE: Refer to the documentation for your specific DR Series system, which includes DMA best practices whitepapers and the latest Dell DR Series Interoperability Guide, for a complete list of the supported DMAs. Visit the following site and select your specific DR Series system to download documentation: http://www.dell.com/powervaultmanuals.

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Use of VTL with Virtual DR Series system (DR2000v) — The use of VTL is not supported on the DR2000v.

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Number of Tape Drives — Each tape library contains 10 tape drives of the type IBM-LTO-4 (‘ULT3580-TD4’)

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Tapes or Media Sizes— Each library initially is created with 10 slots housing 10 tape media of the default size of 800GiB, which is the equivalent of an LTO4 tape.

You can add additional tapes to the library as needed by editing the container in the GUI or by using the following CLI command:

vtl --update_carts –-name <name> –-add --no_of_tapes <number>

NOTE: For more information about using the CLI, see the Dell DR Series CLI Reference Guide.

A library can only contain tapes of the same size. For example, if the library is originally created with 10 tapes of size 10GiB, additional tapes of size 10GiB can only be added.

Tapes of the following capacity are supported: