Tape Library Sharing

Higher Throughput Needs

Just a few servers with large amounts of data can swamp your LAN during a backup or, worse still, an emergency recovery. The solution is to move that backup traffic off your LAN and a shared tape library is an effective way to achieve that. Here's a simple implementation of this architecture.

Tape library sharing works as shown in the diagram below: each host connects directly to one or more tape drives in the library. One host manages the robot and executes tape media movements upon request for all connected hosts.

Tape Library Sharing Detail

Advantages

Faster backup and recover of servers with large data volumes - The LAN is no longer a bottleneck for Slave Servers, who will typically be chosen because they have large volumes of data.
Increased overall backup throughput - Slave Servers can usually pick up a share of the LAN backup clients from the Backup Master, providing additional backup throughput and thus reduced backup windows.
Reduced impact on the LAN - The data stored on the Backup Slave servers is written directly to a tape drive via SCSI and thus bypasses the LAN. By choosing which servers to make direct-connected slave servers, it's possible to move a good portion of the backup traffic off the LAN.
Enable other tape-based applications - If your business wants to deploy other tape-based applications, such as document imaging or data archiving, these can share the tape robot with the backup applications. The incremental cost of deploying such applications is greatly reduced through such hardware reuse.

Disadvantages

Data centre layout is restricted - All backup Slave Servers must be within SCSI distance limits (typically about 20m) of the shared tape library, which imposes some restrictions on the layout of the room.
Increased hardware cost - Increased throughput usually demands the purchase of additional tape drives, regardless of the architecture used.
Greater complexity - Backup administrators must now cater for a number of Slave Servers when managing backup schedules.

A central, multi-use automated tape library can provide enormous return on investment through labour savings and improved service levels. But implementation can be tricky, so be sure you have a strong integration partner - like Data Engines | ENSTOR.

The SCSI-based tape library sharing architecture is today rapidly giving way to the more efficient and flexible SAN tape drive sharing approach.

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