Virtual TapeServer 6.03.41 Operations and Administration Guide

Migrating Data to Physical Tape

Migration allows for better use of the disk space on the storage array. Migration relies on the

use of a backup management application, or BMA. Virtual TapeServer (VTS) supports the

following BMAs for migration:

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (version 5.3 and above)

• Symantec Veritas NetBackup (version 4.5 and above)

• Syncsort Backup Express (version 2.15D and above)

• EMC Legato Networker (version 6.2 or above)

To automate migration, you can configure the VTSPolicy command in conjunction with the

Event Management Service (EMS) on VTS. You can manually initiate migration by clicking

the Migrate button on the Virtual Media - Operation page. If no BMA is installed in your

environment, you can license the Library Migration Facility (LMF) from your authorized VTS

service and support representative, which will enable you to perform manual migrations.

When a virtual tape is migrated to physical tape, all data on the virtual tape is written to

physical tape, including the header information (metadata). The data is then removed from

VTS, though the virtual tape’s metadata is retained. To restore a physical tape that was

migrated by a BMA, the BMA must restore the tape to VTS. Host servers cannot read

physical tapes that were created through migration because the tape is formatted for use by

VTS only. Once the data is restored as a virtual tape in VTS, the host server can then restore

the data.

If Scan/Cleanup is enabled, you can configure VTS to automatically erase virtual tapes after

they are migrated or after their retention periods expire. See

Using Scan/Cleanup on page 73

for more information about enabling and configuring Scan/Cleanup. See Managing pools on

page 53 for more information about setting retention periods.