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52 Setting Up the Dell™ DR Series System as a VTL Backup Target on Microsoft® Data Protection Manager | January
2016
B.7 Space reclamation
B.7.1 General guidelines
The DR Series system VTL feature is presented to operating systems and data management applications
(DMAs) alike as devices either through iSCSI or NDMP protocol connectivity. The DMA interfaces with the
virtual tape library and all its underlying components, including the drives and media though these specific
protocols.
The DMA must interact with the virtual tape media during a recycle, reuse or media initialization process in
order for the DR to be able to reclaim space during its own cleaning cycle.
This two-step process is required so that the backup software can reconcile the space by marking the
media as expired then reusing it, consolidating space across volumes/tapes or by simply recycling the
media into a scratch pool. Once these operations have been completed the DR Series system’s own
cleaning cycle should be used to reclaim that virtual tape media space which in turn will free up physical
space on the DR Series system.
Implementing proper media pool, groups and recycling practices will allow the virtual tape media to be
used at optimal levels and that the underlying physical space be reclaimed accordingly by the scheduled
DR reclamation.
Note: In general the guidelines provided above should be sufficient for normal operations to insure
proper reclamation of space is conducted preemptively. Refer to your individual DMA applications for
best practices and guidelines regarding tape reuse.
B.7.2 Product specific guidelines
In the event that space becomes an issue or that a user impact requires manual cleaning, media can either
be manually Erased, Blanked, and Scratched or otherwise recycled and a manual cleaning cycle initiated
on the DR Series system.