drives and cartridges, or 3592 tape drives and cartridges, for applications which do not
support mixing the drives in the same logical library.
Whether partitioned or not, the TS3500 Tape Library is certified for SAN solutions (such as
LAN-free backup).
The Multi-Path Architecture also lets you configure additional control paths for any one
logical library. A
control path
is a logical path into the library through which a server sends
standard SCSI Medium Changer commands to control the logical library. Additional control
paths reduce the possibility of failure in one control path causing the entire library to be
unavailable. Use of the control path failover feature further reduces that possibility.
Parent topic:
Related concepts
Using multiple control paths for control path failover
Library sharing
Library sharing
This section describes ways that you can configure the TS3500 Tape Library into one or
more logical libraries that can be shared by multiple applications.
The default configuration for the TS3500 Tape Library allows a single application to operate
the library through a single control path. Often, however, it is advantageous to be able to
share a single library between heterogeneous (dissimilar) or homogeneous (similar)
applications. Some applications (and some servers) do not allow for sharing a library
between systems. With the TS3500 Tape Library, however, you can create configurations
that enable the library to process commands from multiple heterogeneous applications
(such as an IBM® pSeries® application and a Windows® application) and multiple
homogeneous applications (for example, the same application run by several pSeries
servers).
From the library's Web interface or operator panel, you can perform the following actions:
•
Configure the library so that it is partitioned into separate logical libraries that
independently communicate with separate applications through separate control paths.
This configuration (see example 1 in
) requires no special capabilities from the
server or application.
•
Configure any single logical library (including the entire physical library) so that it is
shared by two or more servers that are running the same application. Depending on
the capabilities of the server and application, there are several ways to set up this type
of configuration. Three typical ways include:
•
Configuring one server (mainframe host) to communicate with the library
through a single control path; all other servers send requests to that server
