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.
This topic describes key specifications of VTL support in the DR Series hardware systems.
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Supported VTL Types — The DR Series system supports two types of virtual tape libraries. |
NOTE: Refer to the documentation for your specific DR Series system, which includes DMA best practices whitepapers and the latest DR Series System Interoperability Guide, for a complete list of the supported DMAs. Visit the following site and select your specific DR Series system to download documentation: support.quest.com/dr-series. |
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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 60 slots housing 60 tape media of the default size of 800GiB, which is the equivalent of an LTO4 tape. |
vtl --update_carts –-name <name> –-add --no_of_tapes <number>
NOTE: For more information about using the CLI, see the DR Series System Command Line Interface Reference Guide. |
Tapes of the following capacity are supported:
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Maximum Number of DMAs or Initiators Supported — A tape library can be accessed by one DMA or iSCSI initiator at a time. |
Note: A Fibre Channel (FC) VTL container on a DR Series system supports multiple initiators, making it possible for the VTL to be shared across multiple clients of a DMA.
Determine the following before creating a container of type VTL.
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Identify the Data Management Application (DMA) that you will be using to back up data. Refer to the DR Series System Interoperability Guide for a complete list of the supported DMAs. |
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For the NDMP protocol, determine the filer that will be backed up using NDMP Refer to the DR Series System Interoperability Guide for a list of the supported Filers and Operating systems. |
Refer to the DR Series system documentation, which includes best practices whitepapers for the supported DMAs for your specific DR Series system at: support.quest.com/dr-series
Refer to the topics, Creating Storage Containers and Creating a VTL Type Container, for detailed instructions about creating containers. Refer to the DR Series System Command Line Interface Guide for details about the CLI commands for creating containers.
Refer to the DR Series System Command Line Reference Guide for more details about using these commands.
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For iSCSI, you need to set the system-wide CHAP account for the DR Series system. You can add this user on the Users page in the DR Series system GUI. See the topic, Adding a User, for instructions for adding an iSCSI user and password. |
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For NDMP, you can set the password for ndmp_user by using the CLI or on the Users page in the DR Series system GUI. These credentials are needed for configuring the NDMP-VTL in the DMA. See the topic, Adding a User, for instructions for adding an NDMP user and password. |
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