VMware KB: Configuring vendor-supported tape drives and media changers on VMware ESX/ESXi 4.x/5.x

last sentence

Limitations

• Fiber connected tape devices are not supported.
• Tape devices cannot be connected to RAID controllers.

Hi Dynamox

Thanks for your info ...

Let me confirm that .... so Guest OS cannot be used with DD VTL ,,, as this is FC connection ?

Or this means ESX or ESXi server its self is not supported for FC ?

I think this is for Guest OS .

It escapes me now where exactly did I read this, but since 5 or perhaps 5.5 this should be possible with pass through driver - at least that was the claim coming from VMware (it doesn't matter if that is VTL or PTL unless there are specific compatibility restrictions coming from each vendor).

On second thought, that might have been for iSCSI or similar type, but not pure FC   So, I guess it is no-go.

Hi Hrvoje Crelin ,,,

thanks for the reply ... so not for Guest OS Nor ESX and ESXi ... neither ??

I am getting confused...

At this point this depends on VMware... I do not have such setup, but I would suspect that challenge would be virtualization of FC stack and how it works during vMotion (as most likely you wish to have HA VM to protect yourself).  By saying that, I think placing query with VMware would be wise idea as they confirm what we suspect here (or what is after all stated in their KB) and perhaps give clue or two if this would be changed and when.  I think on ESX alone, as it is physical hardware, you can place it, but you run it outside VM then and most likely would be approach not blessed by VMware.

Actually, I plan to virtualize them all (they are kind of virtual now too in sense of LPARs and VPARs, but I plan to move everything to x86).  Since with ddboost all data load goes directly to appliance, I can eliminate all storage nodes and keep just more powerful (CPU/memory wise) HA VM as backup server.  The only thing left is archiving/long-term backup which I send to tape.  For that, I can use some old blade as that is not daily business for me.  Eventually, I would like to see support for tape in VM too since then I can produce (migrate) backups from operational pool (DD) to LTB pool (tape) without any extra run.  Hybrid solution would be to add media server (physical) to existing VM server and send data that way.  Obviously my backup server (VM) would be dedicate datastore.  Of course, this might not be everyone's cup of tea and may very well depend on how you have your setup running and which product you use in the first place.

if your ESX server had a SCSI card and you attached a tape drive directly to the ESX servers, that is supported. I am not sure who would even want to do that but that config is supported. SCSI attached tape drive could be passed through to the VM.

In general i don't know why would you want to virtalize your backup server ?  It needs to be a dedicated physical server, with dedicated FC/IP interfaces (unless we are talking about a small environment where a small backup appliance in a branch office backups a couple of systems and then replicates that data to headquarters DC (Avamar for example)

hi everyone ...

Sorry for the delayed reply ...

And thank you heaps for the advise on this matter ,,,  I will tell my customer it is doable and some are in operation but it is gray area  for support issue ...

My customer told he could use VTL for guest host already ...

thanks !

aya