| tape drive 1 | ---- | switch 1 | ---- hba1 | backup server | hba2 ---- | switch 2 | -----| tape drive 2 |
Our backup server has 2 FC HBAs. Each is zoned into a different drive on the back of the tape library via a separate switch.
Each tape is connected to a different switch presumably to allow for the switch to fail yet allow the backup server to still have one accessible tape.
We seem to have lost an HBA. As a temporary measure, is it possible to move the tape drive into the other switch which is still connected to the backup server and zone the one HBA into both FC Tape drives?
---- | switch 1 | ---- hba1 | backup server | hba2 ---- | switch 2 | -----| tape drive 2 | + | tape drive 1 |
Will this confuse Backup Exec seeing both tape drives coming from one HBA, or dos EMC's HBAnywere software or drivers abstract this away knowledge away from the application and just present the tape drives to the Operating System regardless of which HBA they are appearing..?
My suspicion would be that you can have as many LUNS as you want (within OS Max) coming from one HBA or the other HBA and probably Backup Exec wouldn't know the difference, but I can't risk just changing these things without the concrete knowledge that I'm not going to make things worse. I don't want to risk Backup Exec's access to the last working tape drive.
Thanks!
Yes you can do that, like you say just rezone it and no backupexec won't give a hoot about it - the LUN will remain the same as it's still the same tape drive going through the same HBA - there's no part of the path that cares about the switching infrastructure and neither will HBAnywhere. Basically your understanding is spot-on :)