Silo Device-Naming Conventions

The jb_config program prompts you for the silo name of the storage devices, the name of a device in the silo. The silo name is the name that the Silo Management Software uses to refer to that device. Depending on the type of silo you have, the device name can take several forms. This section describes the naming conventions of the currently supported silos.

StorageTek

The Storage Tek (STK) silo management software, either a program called ACSLS that runs on a UNIX system or a program called Library Attach that runs on an MVS system, names devices according to a coordinate system based on the physical location of the devices in the silo.

For tape drives, the name consists of four digits separated by commas. The first digit refers to the automated cartridge system (ACS) with which the drive is associated. The second digit refers to the library storage module (LSM) in which the drive is located. The third and fourth digits refer to the panel and slot location in which the drive is located. A typical name for an STK drive looks like 1,0,1,0.

Ask the silo administrator the drive names for the devices that Backup can use. There is no method to find this information from the Backup system. To connect to more than one drive, find out the SCSI IDs for each drive and properly match the IDs to the silo names. If you accidentally swap operating system device names and silo names, you can only mount and unmount volumes; you cannot read or write to the volumes after they are mounted. To reconfigure the device names properly, use the Backup administration program to change the order of the device names in the STL Device Names attribute of the Jukeboxes resource.

IBM 3494

The silo management software for the IBM 3494 names devices with an eight-digit number to identify the 3590 drives in the silo. Use the IBM supplied mtlib command to determine the names of all the devices in the 3494:

# mtlib -l library-name -D

Either ask the silo administrator which device is reserved for Backup, or test to decide which silo drive name matches with each Solaris device name.

EMASS/Grau

The silo management software for the EMASS (in North America) or Grau silos is a program called DAS. DAS acts as a front end for the silo control program called AMU. When the silo is configured, the silo administrator gives each drive a symbolic name. The symbolic name can be any alphanumeric string.

To set up DAS to work with Backup, follow these steps:

1. Ask the silo administrator to configure DAS to accept commands from your Backup server or storage node machine.

2. Ask the silo administrator to either:

   • Use the dasadmin allocd command to allocate one or more devices to the Backup server or storage node

   • Configure your Backup server or storage node as an administrator, so you can enter the dasadmin allocd command to allocate devices from your Backup server or storage node machine

To find the names assigned to the devices in the silo, you can use a utility called dasadmin.

1. Set the following environment variables:

   • DAS_SERVER, the hostname of the silo management server, which runs DAS

   • DAS_CLIENT, the hostname of the Backup server or storage node

   • ACI_MEDIA_TYPE, one of: 3480, CD_THICK, CD_THIN, DECDLT, 8MM, 4MM, D2, VHS, 3590, CD, TRAVAN, DTF, BETACAM, AUDIO_TAPE and DAS_MEDIUM, same value as ACI_MEDIA_TYPE

2. Issue the following command to see a list of drives and the hostnames to which they are allocated:

dasadmin ld