Backup Devices And Slots; Deduplication; Emulation Types; Fibre Channel - HP StorageWorks D2D - Backup Systems User Manual

Backup devices and slots

Backup devices appear to the host as locally-attached tape devices, but physically, they use disk
space on the HP D2D Backup System which, as in tape terminology, is referred to as slots or cartridges.
The HP D2D supports the following emulation types: HP G2 Autoloader (1x8), HP MSL Library (2x24),
HP MSL Library (4x24). and D2DBS Generic Library (8 up to 144 slots). The emulation type determines
how many embedded drives and cartridge slots are available. For example, if you select HP MSL G3
Series (2x24), the device will emulate an MSL Library with two embedded tape drives and a possible
total of 96 cartridge slots. See also
When you configure your HP D2D Backup System with a tape library, the drive emulation type that
you select determines the amount of physical disk space that is made available for each configured
slot. LTO-2 defaults to 200 GB, LTO-3 defaults to 400 GB and LTO-4 defaults to 800 GB. This is the
equivalent of a tape library with multiple slots, each containing a 200, 400 or 800 GB cartridge.
Both tape spanning and, more importantly, flexible tape rotation strategies are possible.

Deduplication

Data deduplication compares blocks of data being written to the backup device with data blocks
previously stored on the device. If duplicate data is found, a pointer is established to the original
data, rather than storing the duplicate data sets. This removes, or "deduplicates," the redundant
blocks. See also

Emulation types

HP D2D products emulate a range of physical Tape Autoloaders or Tape Libraries. Supported emulation
types are listed below:
• HP 1x8 G2 Autoloader
• HP MSL2024 Library
• HP MSL4048 Library
• HP D2DBS Library
If it is supported by your backup application, HP D2DBS Library is the preferred emulation type to be
used because it does not emulate any physical library types in existence and is clearly identifiable
as a D2D device. It is the most flexible emulation type available; however, backup application support
varies by software vendor. See also

Fibre Channel

Fibre Channel (FC) supports network connectivity over fibre optic cabling or copper wiring. FC has
a different set of standards and network connection protocol to Ethernet and different configuration
requirements. FC HP D2D Backup Systems may be connected to both a Fibre Channel SAN and an
Ethernet (as an iSCSI device) network. The FC connection is used only to transfer backup data from
the host to the HP D2D. Access to the HP D2D Web Management interface is always across an
Ethernet connection. See also

Hosts

A server that is being used to back up directly to the D2D system via iSCSI or Fibre Channel, this may
also be a backup application media server which can back up other servers on the network that do
not have a direct iSCSI or Fibre Channel connection to the D2D.
22 Before you start
"Devices
"Data deduplication" on page 26.
"Emulation types for tape
"HP D2D Backup Systems and Fibre
(Configuration)" on page 110.
devices" on page 112.
Channel" on page 65.