Virtual TapeServer 8.4 Configuration Guide

Creating and Managing Virtual Media

VTS organizes data in vaults, which are defined for you. Vaults contain pools, and pools contain

virtual tapes. You can create, modify, and delete pools. You can perform the following on virtual

tapes:

l Mount and unmount

l Encrypt and decrypt, if Data Encryption is licensed

l Export to physical tape (tape-to-tape export and stacked tape export)

l Replicate or export to a remote host, if Data Replication is licensed

l Import from physical tape, from a remote host, a physical tape drive, or a physical library

l Erase

l Delete

You can also manage virtual tape locks. And, of course, you can backup and restore virtual tapes from

the host server, though these procedures are not provided here.

This chapter describes how to manage and use pools and virtual tapes.

Note Be sure to display the online help; click About on the navigation pane of the web interface and

then click the Help Set link in the Product Documentation section of the About page. Full

details are provided in the help and are necessary to complete the procedures in this chapter.

Creating a pool

Pools enable you to group virtual tapes and then set attributes on all tapes in the pool, such as

policy, encryption, autoloading, and size limits. When you create a new pool, a directory of the same

name is created in the chosen vault (/VAULT0x/pool_name) and all associated virtual tapes are

stored in the directory.

After you create pools, you can view them in their respective vaults in the Storage Report.

Note Vaults are used for storing pools only; VTS uses vaults for virtual tapes and VTD components

exclusively. Files and applications should be installed in other storage locations, such as the

root partition.