Tape storage systems (nearline peripherals) provide an additional storage option in the data center to supplement the directly connected disk storage systems (online peripherals).
BS2000 recognizes the following tape storage systems:
- Real tape storage systems;
These tape storage systems operate real LTO magnetic tape cartridges (MTCs) in real MTC devices. MTCs are mounted, unmounted, and stored. The data is written directly to the MTC. MAREN manages the real MTCs. - Virtual tape storage systems;
These tape storage systems (e.g. ETERNUS CS) simulate real tape operation for the user. However, the tapes are mounted and unmounted only virtually. The data is initially written to a data cache on disk, and only later migrated to real LTO MTCs. The real MTCs are not visible to BS2000. MAREN manages the virtual MTCs. - Emulated tape devices.
Emulated tape devices on BS2000 servers display BS2000 tapes as files in the Linux file system (EMFILEs) or as files on CD/DVD (CDROM files). This enables data exchange to take place between BS2000 systems via compatible EMFILEs / CDROM files. Use of emulated tape devices is reserved for the system administrator or Customer Support. Information on emulated tape devices is provided in the “Operation and Administration” manual [10].BS2000 does not see the EMFILEs and CDROM files, but in both cases tape files of the type BM1662FS which can be addressed by means of their mnemonic. In each case drives of the type T6250 (T9G) are visible which are addressed using their archive numbers and are treated like tapes of this type. These tapes can be managed with MAREN.
In the MAREN manuals, the term tape is used as a generic term for all real, virtual, or emulated magnetic tapes when no further distinction need be made. Volume, data carrier, and MTC are commonly used synonyms.
By analogy, the term tape device is used for all devices which accommodate a tape.