How to vMotion during tape backup

[TheVMinator]

I need to figure out a solution for a VMs that are connected to a tape backup.  Currently the solution uses a physical server with a scsi connection another physical server uses a usb connection to a tape backup.

For example - for the USB connected tape backup - if I install a usb-over-ip hub - would that work?  Will it allow the Vm to connect to the IP and be able to vmotion without making the backup job fail?  If not is there a better solution?

For the scsi connected tape backup - is there a similar or better solution?

I want the Vm to be able to move among all physical servers in the cluster and be able to restart on any new server.  I don't want to have to hardwire the VM to scsi passthrough on any single physical server.

Thanks for your ideas!

[daphnissov]

I don't believe it's even supported to pass through a tape drive through an ESXi host to a VM, therefore don't even worry about vMotion. If you need physical tape access, that's not a use case for a VM.

[TheVMinator]

Thanks for your input.  However usb over IP doesn't require passing through an esxi host.   It exposes an IP address that can live on the same network as the IP of the OS on the VM.  That's the point of what I was asking - what are the options for creating connectivity from a VM to a tape backup wtihout having to use passthrough?

[daphnissov]

For SCSI there's no option, and that's how most tape drives connect. I've never seen a USB-connected tape drive out there. Assuming there is one, you'd probably need to check with something like USBAnywhere for compatibility, which is probably slim. Again, though, if you need physical tape drive access you probably don't need it in a VM.

[TheVMinator]

it seems to me that someone must have approached this type of problem and come up with a solution....what if we replace our tape drive with something else?

[daphnissov]

What if you replaced your VM with something else? Like a physical machine...like how almost everyone else is doing when they need access to a tape drive.

[TheVMinator]

We want to use virtual servers rather than physical.  That is one of the main goals here.  This being a VMware forum, I trust that it is not necessary to defend why someone might want to use a virtual machine rather than a physical machine.  Nevertheless that is a goal.  The goal is to find a solution that both takes advantages of the benefits of virtualization, but still provides backup capabilities to tape, or replaces it with similar functionality that allows the compute side of the design to take advantage of the benefits of virtualization.

[daphnissov]

My point is that based on your requirements and the fact that almost all tape devices require some sort of direct connection (because they're seen as block devices), plus the fact that tape drive connection to ESXi is not supported, these types of workloads may not actually be candidates for virtualization. There are still some cases that virtualization doesn't support, and this is one of them. You unfortunately don't get to just demand that everything be virtual and then it is so. Have a mainframe? Probably not going to be a VM. Need to manage a piece of machinery with a proprietary hardware card? Probably not going to be a VM. You've got to choose the right solution given the requirements and constraints. That's just how design works.

[Rubeck]

Maybe this could be used?

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/download-starwind-tape-redirector

/Rubeck