NonStop NS-Series Operations Guide (H06.12+)

11 Tape Drives: Monitoring and Recovery
• “When to Use This Section” (page 135)
• “Overview of Tape Drives” (page 135)
• “Monitoring Tape Drives” (page 135)
— “Monitoring Tape Drive Status With OSM” (page 135)
— “Monitoring Tape Drive Status With SCF” (page 137)
— “Monitoring Tape Drive Status With MEDIACOM” (page 138)
— “Monitoring the Status of Labeled-Tape Operations” (page 139)
• “Identifying Tape Drive Problems” (page 139)
• “Recovery Operations for Tape Drives ” (page 140)
— “Recovery Operations Using the OSM Service Connection” (page 140)
— “Recovery Operations Using SCF” (page 140)
• “Related Reading” (page 141)
When to Use This Section
This section provides an overview of operating, monitoring, and recovery operations for tape
drives attached to Integrity NonStop NS-series servers.
Overview of Tape Drives
A new generation of multimode fibre channel (MMF) peripherals is supported on Integrity
NonStop systems. Tape drives with an MMF interface are connected directly to a fibre port on
an FCSA in an IOAME or VIO enclosure. Some high voltage differential (HVD) SCSI drives are
also supported in the NS optical environment. These drives are connected using an M8201 fibre
channel to SCSI router. The M8201 converts the FCSA MMF connection into two SCSI buses.
Currently, only optical port 0 is used on the M8201. The SCSI drives are connected using 68-pin
to 68-pin HVD SCSI cables. These cables have a high density connector for the M8201.
Most drives supported on NonStop S-series can be connected to an Integrity NonStop NS16000
series server through an IOMF2 in an IOMF enclosure. The drives can be interfaced in the same
manner that is supported in S-series, either through an SNDA or a SCSI port on an IOMF2 board.
OSM provides different views for drives that are connected through an FCSA versus an IOMF2.
See “Monitoring Tape Drives” (page 135).
For further information, refer to the document on Integrity NonStop NS-Series Supported Hardware
and the NonStop NS16000 Series Hardware Installation Manual.
Monitoring Tape Drives
This section describes the various methods of tape drives, which include:
• OSM Service Connection
• SCF
• Use MEDIACOM to monitor the use of tape drives and to write tape labels.
Monitoring Tape Drive Status With OSM
To check the status of all tape drives on your system:
1. Log on to the OSM Service Connection.
2. In the tree pane, expand the system object and check the Tape Collection object. A yellow
arrow displayed over the Tape Collection object (see Figure 11-1) indicates that a problem
exists with one or more of the tape drives connected to the system.
When to Use This Section 135