Ts3500 Tape Library Shuttle Complex - IBM TS3500 Introduction And Planning Manual

Figure 8. TS3500 Tape Library shuttle complex
Physical configuration of the shuttle complex
A shuttle complex is comprised of between two and 15 parallel library strings that
are interconnected by shuttle connections between HD frames. Each library string
in a shuttle complex has access to one or more shuttle cars that each provide at
least one direct route to each of the remote library strings. (At least two direct
routes are recommended for redundancy.)
A shuttle complex supports library strings with varying numbers of frames to the
left or right of each connection. A shuttle complex also supports shuttle
connections with varying numbers of spans. This support enables flexible shuttle
complex configurations in order to accommodate most data center arrangements. It
is required that the front doors of each library string in the shuttle complex face
the same direction.
Shuttle connections attach to shuttle stations that are mounted on HD frames.
Logical configuration of the shuttle complex
A shuttle complex enables multiple TS3500 Tape Library strings to appear as a
single library image to the host. Each library string is still its own SCSI library,
however a library manager application such as HPSS, aggregates the multiple SCSI
libraries into a single library image. This allows sharing of tape drive resources
across multiple logical libraries in different library strings.
Each library string in a shuttle complex contains up to 192 logical libraries. Each
shuttle station can be assigned to one logical library per library string or can
remain unassigned. It is required that all shuttle stations on the same connection
are assigned to logical libraries of the same media type. Shuttle stations are
assigned to logical libraries through the TS3500 Tape Library web specialist
interface.
16
IBM System Storage TS3500 Tape Library with ALMS: Introduction and Planning Guide