Virtual TapeServer 6.04.01 Operations and Administration Guide

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Introduction
Tape remains the most practical solution for removable storage, and it is often required by
regulatory agencies to be archived and stored offsite. However, as the cost of commodity disk
storage has decreased, many enterprises view disk-based backup solutions as a feasible
alternative to tape-based backup. Disk-based backup, or virtual tape storage, can
significantly improve performance, allows users to plan backup and archiving strategies, and
enables users to manage data retention and disaster recovery operations.
Virtual TapeServer (VTS) is a fully integrated virtual tape, hardware and software solution.
VTS allows host systems to read from and write to a local or SAN-attached file system. Data
is automatically migrated to a tape device based on policies or manually migrated to physical
tape for archival storage or disaster recovery, if long-term backup copies are required. The
integrated support for backup management application software provides policy-driven
mechanisms for writing to physical tape drives and libraries.
For every host connection to VTS, the host system “sees” a tape drive; the virtual tape drive
emulates the type of tape drive specified during the initial installation and setup process.
Virtual tape drives behave just like real tape drives without the problems generally
associated with real tape drives.
VTS delivers reliable, scalable, and high performance virtual tape for backup and restore,
Transaction Management Facility (TMF), and archive and data recovery operations. You can
deploy VTS to simplify and streamline traditional tape operations, reduce costs for storage