BackBox H4.00 User Manual

Appendix C – Migration to the BackBox product
201 BackBox H4.00 User Manual
Appendix C – Migration to the BackBox product
This appendix gathers general guidelines for migrating legacy tape storage to the
BackBox product, with a focus on the tape volumes, their content and their
registration in catalogues. These sections will be covered:
o Considerations about key subjects
o Available functionality to help migration
o Sample migration plan
In each site, the migration period that can easily span on several months, requires
detailed planning for the data in storage, for the tape catalogues in the NonStop
systems and for the operation of tape drives systems.
Considerations
NonStop tape catalogues
Regarding the tape catalogue on NonStop, the BackBox migration functionality is the
same for the three catalogues BackBox can access: DSM/TC, TMF and QTOS.
The migration functions ((“Virtualize Volume”, “Import from Tape Catalogue” and the
Volume group auto-import feature) work the same way for these three catalogues.
Less automation is available to migrate volumes not catalogued or catalogued in
another tape catalogue.
Media type
BackBox provides emulation for these media types: CART3480, LTO2 (to operate on
LTO3 drives) LTO3 and LTO4, providing a natively supported media type to all
NonStop sytem series, from G06.xx to J06.xx.
As BackBox volumes are virtual, the media type is not related to the volume data
(except LTO4 to access with HP VLE encryption), and not assigned to each volume
individually.
But the media type registered in the catalogues DSM/TC and CA must match the
emulation type of the tape drive for $ZSVR accepts to operate a loaded media.
BackBox can manage different media types and device types in a single system and
single VTC. It selects the tape drive appropriate to the media type configured in the
Volume Group.
During a migration, it might happen:
o the legacy system uses a media type that is not supported by BackBox, for
example DLTIII
o an S-Series system, that supports CART3480, is replaced by a Blade, that
does not support CART3480