| The IBM
TotalStorage™ Virtual Tape Server Model
B20 (B20 VTS) is an enterprise tape solution
designed to enhance performance and provide
the capacity required for todayÕs
backup requirements. Adoption of this solution
can help reduce batch processing time, total
cost of ownership and management overhead.
Automation of a larger portion of a companyÕs
data storage may also be facilitated in
a shorter period of time.
The B20 VTS
has been designed to reduce or eliminate
the number of bottlenecks that may be present
in a given tape environment, depending on
the characteristics of installed equipment
and processor workloads. For example, if
more drives are needed, up to 256 virtual
drives may be configured to meet this need.
If cartridge capacity is not fully utilized,
the B20 VTS can alleviate this problem by
filling physical cartridges.
The B20 VTS
initially creates a virtual volume in a
buffer known as the Tape Volume Cache (TVC),
a RAID-5 disk array. If these virtual volumes
are re-referenced, they are accessed in
most instances from the TVC, helping to
eliminate many of the physical delays associated
with tape I/O and improving the performance
of the tape process.
The virtual
volume is also written to an attached IBM
TotalStorage Enterprise Tape System 3590
as a logical volume. A copy of the virtual
volume remains in the cache which may provide
fast access to critical data.
A VTS provides
a high degree of automated storage management
capabilities. Migration and reclamation
functions are dynamically processed whenever
VTS internal thresholds are met and necessary
resources like two idle Enterprise Tape
Drives are available.
Optional Advanced
Function and Advanced Policy Management
features are available to optimize the storage
management for specific needs.
- The cache
residency time of selected virtual volumes
may optionally be preferred over others
using DFSMS
- A cache
management option offers immediate deletion
of selected virtual volumes after pre-migration
to optimize fast read access to data
- The Volume
Pooling option enables groups of selected
logical volumes. This option allows different
application or customer sets to be grouped
on physically separated stacked volumes
- Selected
logical volumes may automatically be duplicated
and stored on different physical cartridges
to protect data from media failures
- Import/Export
enables volumes to be moved for disaster
recovery, workload balancing or volume
archiving. Exported stacked volumes may
be imported on another VTS Model B20 or
B10
Virtual drives
can be dedicated to a specific processor
or shared in supported environments. This
flexibility maximizes the efficiency of
data transfer operations by allocating sufficient
drives for a specific task.
IBM TotalStorage
Enterprise Tape Library Specialist is available
to monitor the B20 VTS. A Call Home function
is also provided to enable proactive maintenance.
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