Other Tape Library Setup Scenarios

If, in conjunction with the customer, a strategic determination is made to attach the media changer or tape drives in a different way, you can do so. However, the practices described in Recommended Best Practices for Tape Libraries are highly recommended to maximize reliability and minimize troubleshooting challenges.

There are a number of supported ways to attach the tape library’s media changer and tape drives to the Enterprise. They can be connected through a fiber channel SAN, iSCSI SAN, direct fiber channel attachment, or legacy parallel SCSI cable attachment.

If the connection is through a fiber channel SAN, the media changer must be controlled by a device server, not by a NetApp storage system, and the tape drives can be controlled by any node or NetApp storage system.

If direct attachment through fiber channel or legacy parallel SCSI is required, it is highly recommended for the media changer and at least one tape drive to be attached directly to the master server to support media changer control and Catalog backups. If a tape drive cannot be attached or accessed through the master server, an alternate strategy must be used to move Catalog backups to a safe medium that can be recovered in the event of site disaster.

iSCSI SAN connections are generally not recommended due to latency and connection reliability. If iSCSI is absolutely necessary, for example if no physical server with HBA is available for media changer control, great care must be taken by the site administrators to ensure such connections are very reliable. Any disruption in connection will impact backup and media control operations.

Though it is possible to attach a tape library directly to a NetApp storage system for exclusive control of media changer and all tape devices, it is not recommended as an alternate strategy for Catalog backups is required. Additionally, media changer reliability and troubleshooting may be problematic, necessitating movement of media changer device to a node with HBA physical server. NetApp media changer control is also limited to tape libraries having 600 total slots or less; larger tape libraries do not work properly due to SCSI limitations.