STA allows you to automate and manage media validation across all SL3000 and SL8500 libraries in your system. STA-driven media validation has distinct advantages over validation done through the library interface.
Increased Security with Reduced Cost and Complexity
Media validation is done internally by the T10000C and T10000D drives themselves, providing several advantages over validation methods offered by other vendors. Data in your tape library system is kept secure because there is no need to send it across a network to a separate application. Costs are reduced because there is no need for a dedicated host server or additional host software to read information from the media and drives, and there is no need for additional Fibre Channel data connections to the drives.
No Disruption to Library Production Operations
Validation drives are not available for use by host applications, but if a host requires media that is being validated, the host request takes priority. The library interrupts the validation, dismounts the media from the drive, and makes the media available to the application. This is done transparently to the application.
Assurance of Valid Test Results
To confirm the validity of all media validation tests, STA provides optional drive calibration and qualification features. Calibration ensures that validation drives are in good working order, and qualification ensures that the validation drives remain calibrated and failed validations are the result of problems with the media, not the drive. These features operate without user intervention once they are configured and enabled.
See Configure Drive Calibration and Qualification (optional).
Automated Validation Operations
With STA, you can define policies for automatically selecting media for validation. For example, you could define policies to initiate validations whenever media health falls to Action or whenever a drive detects a bad media information record (MIR). STA automatically queues the media for validation on a a compatible drive. STA can initiate and process multiple validations simultaneously, depending on the number of drives you have set aside for validation activities.
See Automate Media Validation Using Policies.
User Management of Validation Requests
You can use STA to manage the validation request queue. You can reprioritize pending validation requests, cancel in-progress requests, and initiate validations manually.
See Submit Manual Media Validation Requests and Manage the Media Validation Requests Queue.
To prevent the overuse of data media, STA does not allow a piece of media to be validated more than once in a 24-hour period. This applies to both manual and automated validation requests.
Comprehensive Reporting of Validation Results
STA displays the results of all validation activities performed in your tape library system. This includes validations initiated by other applications, such as Oracle's StorageTek SL Console and Oracle's StorageTek Storage Archive Manager (SAM). STA analyzes validation results and makes recommendations for action you should take.
See Verify there are Valid Validation Drives.
When a media validation is in process, the drive is reserved to the initiating application and not available to any others. Oracle recommends performing media validations through one application at a time to avoid potential drive reservation conflicts.
STA provide significantly more media validation features than the library interface (SLC).
An X indicates the feature is supported by that product.
| Feature | STA | SLC |
|---|---|---|
| Configure the validation drive pool. | - | X |
| Support all T10000C and T10000D verification test types. | X | X |
| Automatically mitigate false-positive validation results. | X | - |
| Calibrate validation drives. | X | - |
| Automatically perform ongoing qualification of validation drives. | X | - |
| Perform one validation at a time. | X | X |
| Perform multiple validations at a time. | X | - |
| Perform validations in multiple libraries or complexes at once. | X | - |
| Perform automated, policy-driven validations. | X | - |
| Submit multiple validation requests to a user-managed request queue. | X | - |
| Reprioritize pending validation requests. | X | - |
| Display progress indicators for in-progress validations. | X | X |
| Display validation results one at a time. | X | X |
| Display multiple validation results at one time. | X | - |
| Display validation results in table and graph form. | X | - |
| Display validation history over a selected date range. | X | - |
| Display detailed validation failure and disposition information. | X | - |
| Report indications of marginal tape quality (on selected drive firmware versions only). | X | - |
| Receive alerts about validation results | X | - |
| Display dashboard summaries of validation activity on a PC or mobile device | X | - |
| Receive emailed executive reports summaries of validation activity | X | - |