Introduction; Vls12200 Gateway Components - HP 12000 User Manual

1 Introduction

The HP StorageWorks virtual library system (VLS) family consists of RAID disk-based SAN backup
devices that emulate physical tape libraries, allowing you to perform disk-to-virtual tape (disk-to-disk)
backups using your existing backup applications. The VLS family includes different series of models
that vary in storage capacity and performance. Firmware version 6.0.0 marks the change to a
64–bit operating system on the nodes.
The VLS emulates a variety of physical tape libraries, including the tape drives and cartridges
inside the libraries. You determine the number and types of tape libraries a VLS emulates, and the
number and types of tape drives and cartridges included in each tape library to meet the needs
of your environment. You configure the size of the virtual cartridges in your VLS, which provides
even more flexibility.
The VLS automigration features allow you to establish data pools to create and manage mirror
(echo copy) or snapshot (smart copy) replication of data for additional protection against data
loss. Deduplication provides the functionality in which only a single copy of a data block is stored
on a device. Duplicate information is removed, thereby reducing the amount of storage used by
a given data block.
The VLS accommodates mixed IT platform and backup application environments, allowing all your
servers and backup applications to access the virtual media simultaneously. You can specify which
servers are allowed to access each virtual library and tape drive you configure. You can change
the default LUNs assigned to the virtual library and tape drives for each host as needed to
accommodate different operating system requirements and restrictions.
Data stored on a VLS is easily cloned to physical tape for off-site disaster protection or long-term
archival using a backup application.
This section describes the HP StorageWorks 12200 Gateway virtual library system models.

VLS12200 Gateway Components

A VLS12200 Gateway consists of at least two nodes (one primary node and between one and
seven secondary nodes) and dual LAN switches for internal inter-node connections. See the drawing
of racked nodes below. Each VLS12200 gateway node contains hardware data compression,
dual processors, one 4 Gb four-port Fibre Channel HBA, 48 GB of RAM, and two 500 GB SAS
hard drives.
No external storage is included with the VLS12200; instead, the gateway uses external storage
in existing arrays.
Figure 1 Racked Gateway Components
Item Description
1 Nodes
2 Ethernet Switches
VLS12200 Gateway Components 1 1