The overall steps and recommended guidelines for using and configuring a virtual tape library (VLT) with QoreStor are described below.
Plan your Environment
Determine the following before creating a container of type VTL.
- Identify the Data Management Application (DMA) that you will be using to back up data. Refer to the QoreStor Interoperability Guide for a complete list of the supported DMAs.
- For the NDMP protocol, determine the filer that will be backed up using NDMP Refer to the QoreStor Interoperability Guide for a list of the supported Filers and Operating systems.
- For the iSCSI protocol, determine the iSCSI initiator’s properties – This is the DMA IP, hostname or IQN of the software initiator on the operating system.
- Assess the estimated size of full and incremental backups and retention periods.
NOTE: The size of the full and incremental backups will determine the tape capacity size that you set. You should use a larger tape size for full backups and a smaller size for incremental backups that have smaller retention periods. Note that faster expiration periods of incremental backups residing on smaller tapes results in the release of space back to the system for future backups.
Create Containers of Type VTL
- Determine the VTL library type (NDMP or iSCSI) that you should be using as per the suggested type in the best practices guide of your preferred DMA.
Refer to the QoreStor documentation, which includes DMA best practices whitepapers for your specific QoreStor version at support.quest.com/qorestor.
- When creating the container in the GUI or by using the CLI, you will need to set the connection type of either NDMP or iSCSI. You need to provide either the DMA IP/hostname for NDMP or the IP/hostname or IQN for an iSCSI connection type.
Refer to the topics, Creating a container and Creating a VTL type container , for detailed instructions about creating containers. Refer to the QoreStor Command Line Interface Guide for details about the CLI commands for creating containers.
Authentication/User Management Considerations
- You can use the following commands to view user information for the iSCSI user: iscsi_user, and NDMP user: ndmp_user.
iscsi --show
ndmp --show
Refer to the QoreStor Command Line Reference Guide for more details about using these commands.
- For iSCSI, you need to set the system-wide CHAP account for the QoreStor system. You can add this user on the Users page in the QoreStor GUI. See the topic, Adding a user, for instructions for adding an iSCSI user and password.
- For NDMP, you can set the password for ndmp_user by using the Users page in the QoreStor 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.
Verify the Tape Library Creation
You can easily check that the library has been created and is available for use by using the following commands.
- Check the container properties by executing the following command:
container --show –verbose
- Upon initial addition of the connection, the NDMP/iSCSI connection status shows as ‘Added”. At this time, the library is not officially created.
- After a few minutes, the NDMP/iSCSI connection status changes to “Available” . This status indicates that the library is online, and the tape drives and media is available for usage.
- To check the status of the virtual tape library and all the tapes in the library, you can run one of the following commands:
vtl –show
vtl --show --name <container_name> --verbose
Configure the Library in the DMA
See the QoreStor documentation, which includes DMA best practices whitepapers for your specific QoreStor version at:
support.quest.com/qorestor.