Connecting a fibre attached tape drive to a VM on a 4.0 ESX host

[Tr1gger]

Hi all,

I'm new to this so go gentle, and i apoligise if this question has been asked many times before.

We look after a cluster of 8 ESX 4.0 hosts, and would like to virtualise our Netbackup Master server into this cluster, we have a FC attached tape drive.  What are the steps, or what is needed to allow the VM's to see the tape library, is it a case of creating zones, then doing a re-scan and will it appear, or do i need to do anything special?

Many thanks for your help!

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

"ESX/ESXi does not support FC connected tape devices." - p.29 of the Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide

Do have a tape drive on your master server, or is it a master/media combo?  The master server can be virtualized - just without the tape drive.

Good Luck!

[Tr1gger]

I came accross this article, is this not the case?

http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2008/10/27/connect-a-fibre-attached-tape-device-to-a-vm-on-esx/ 

[krishna_v78]

Hi,

Thanks for the link. it was nice to gain knowledge. However, it was only lagging vMotion feasability.

Regards,

Balu.

[idle-jam]

that's the only problem, you can vmotion to another host where the actual connected device is on another host, however USB on vSphere 4.1 supports this where the devices connected are vmotion friendly but not for FC yet.

[vmroyale]

I think Jason's article was more about showing that it could work.  However, getting it to work and having a supported configuration are two very different things.  The thing to think about is whether you want to have a DR/BC plan based around an unsupported setup.