I have a slight problem where I've been assigned to look into creating a virtual backup media server (to run with W2K3 Standard Edition and Symantec Backup Exec) to connect to a directly attached HP StorageWorks MSL2024 Tape Library (1 x Ultrium 960 tape drive) - the physical ESX 3.0.1. host will be running on an HP ProLiant DL380 G5 server with the SCSI HBA being an HP Single Chanel Ultra320 (PCI Express).
Unfortunately until I get onsite to look at it (at least another two weeks) I'm stuck with no hardware to play with the same configuration and I was just wanting to see if anyone else has managed to get this working successfully AND if so what steps were made to get it working.
Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated and accepted as I'm not a full fledged VMware ESX administrator plus there is several posts that show varying results for other vendors tape drives/libraries.
Hello,
I would NOT connect the tape library to your ESX server. I would use a remote physical box to perform backups. The reasons are really two fold.
1) If the passthru scsi device craters (which is is want to do) then
the ESX server SC goes with it.
2) I do not like the overhead this puts on the ESX server.
I have done it both ways and a remote server works best. I use a DELL PowerVault 128T and it is very similar to the MSL libraries (it is actually an HP library rebranded as DELL).
Best regards,
Edward
I agree for our backups we send them to a seperate backup server which has the tape library attached to it. I don't like attaching the tape library directly to the ESX host mainly for the fact if you gave problems with the device and a server reboot is necessary you are now effecting all of your guests.
Also for our guest backups we use esXpress.
This is what worked for us. You may need to get an Adaptec 29320LPE SCSI card
The problem:
The new breed of HP (and probably other makers) LTO Auto-changer tape libraries are now multi LUN on the SCSI bus – that is both the tape driver and the media changer have the same SCSI ID with different LUNs.
Our installation:
HP Proliant DL380 G5 (only supports PCI Express)
HP 1/8 Ultrium 920 G2 Tape Autoloader
VI3 ESX 3.0.1 (under test, yet to test 3.0.2)
Virtual Centre 2.1
Veritas / Symantec Backup Exec 11
The two basic configuration restrictions on ESX 3 are:
1. There is no support for multi LUN SCSI devices on SCSI pass-through devices (tapes).
2. Only Adaptec SCSI cards are supported for pass-through devices. (see VMware HCL)
For a few days we thought that we ‘could not get there from here!’
The first part of the solution came when we realised that ESX internally does recognise multi LUN SCSI devices when you install the appropriate Adaptec card. It creates two device files, one for each LUN on the SCSI adapter.
When ESX maps SCSI devices to the guest virtual adapter it is maps to device files not physical adapter devices. That is ESX is quite happy to map the two device files (same ID different LUN) to two separated virtual SCSI IDs on the virtual adapter in the guest.
The result is the guest gets to see both devices but now they have different SCSI IDs – virtual that is.
The second part came in the form of the latest version and patches of Backup Exec which has drivers for the new HP library devices.
The solution:
1. Purchase an Adaptec 29320LPE SCSI adapter – supported on ESX and supports multi LUN devices.
2. Install the adapter and media library, power on the tape library and boot the ESX server. Note it boots, finds the new hardware and re-boots.
3. Verify that the both library devices have been found and the ESX SCSI devices created.
On the ESX console logon as root.
cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 04 Lun: 00
Vendor: HP Model: Ultrium 3-SCSI Rev: D22W
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 04 Lun: 01
Vendor: HP Model: 1x8 G2 AUTOLDR Rev: 1.30
Type: Medium Changer ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Note the two SCSI devices –
ID = 4 LUN = 0 – tape drive
ID = 4 LUN = 1 – media changer
ll /proc/vmware/scsi/vmhba1
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 24 09:14 4:0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 24 09:14 4:1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 24 09:14 stats
Note the two SCSI device files – 4:0 and 4:1.
On the HP library you can use the Web management interface to change the SCSI ID of the library but not the LUNs, the tape drive is always LUN 0 and the media changer LUN 1.
4. In VI Client add the SCSI devices to the Guest VM. The VM should be shutdown at the time.
Select the VM guest
Edit settings
Add
SCSI Device
Set - Tape – “HP “ – to device to SCSI(0:4)
Set - Media – “HP “ – to device to SCSI(0:5)
Note the lines added to the .VMX file for this guest –
scsi0:4.present = "true"
scsi0:4.deviceType = "scsi-passthru"
scsi0:4.fileName = "/vmfs/devices/generic/vml.0201000000500110a00090d7ed556c74726975"
scsi0:4.allowGuestConnectionControl = "false"
scsi0:5.present = "true"
scsi0:5.deviceType = "scsi-passthru"
scsi0:5.fileName = "/vmfs/devices/generic/vml.0208010000500110a00090d7ec317838204732"
scsi0:5.allowGuestConnectionControl = "false"
5. Boot the VM and verify that Windows sees the new devices – Device Manager should have both the Tape and the Media Changer.
6. Install Backup Exec build 7170 plus Hot Fix 16 or later.
7. Verify access to the tape and media library.
Note –
If the tape library is powered off when ESX boots, attempts to power on the guest OS will fail with .VMX file errors on the virtual SCSI devices.
A SCSI pass through tape and library can only be mounted to ONE VM guest OS.
This document was generated from the following thread: Working Backup Solution via ESX 3.0.1 with HP MSL2024 Tape Library