Communicator e3000 MPE/iX Release 7.5 PowerPatch 2 (Software Release C.75.02) (30216-90352)

Chapter 3

Technical Articles

Announcing Limited Support for Ultrium Tape on MPE/iX

by Jim Hawkins, MPE/iX Lab

The purpose of this article is to document the limited support offered for Ultrium Tape Devices (a.k.a. “LTO”)

on MPE/iX.

The primary considerations are outlined below. Items #3 and #4 are unique to Ultrium Tape Devices and

represent a departure from traditional MPE/iX tape device support.

1. System and connection types: A-Class and N-Class, LVD-SCSI only.

2. O.S. software: MPE/iX 7.0 or 7.5 with appropriate version of patch MPEMXJ3.

3. Supported software: Only for use with certified 3rd party back-up solutions.

4. Diagnostic support: Very limited, requires access to Windows or HP-UX system with LVD-SCSI HBA and

current version of HP Storage Works Library and Tape Tools. Some diagnostic activities may require

removing the tape device from the HP e3000.

More in depth discussion of these items along with configuration details follows.

Hardware and Software Requirements

MPE/iX support of Ultrium 215 and 230 devices is limited to parallel LVD-SCSI connections only. Thus, these

devices may only be connected to HP e3000 A-Class and N-Class systems running MPE/iX 7.0 or 7.5 Release.

In addition, patch MPEMXJ3, version “A” for MPE/iX 7.0 or version “B” for MPE/iX 7.5, must be installed for

the device to be supported. Finally, on 7.0 only, patch MPEMX74 “A” should also be installed.

Only those HP Ultrium Tape devices sold for use with HP-UX PA-RISC server systems will be supported.

There are variations in firmware for the many Ultrium devices on the market; only devices with the firmware

for HP-UX server systems will be supported. More on Firmware below.

Ultrium Tape Usage Requirements

Ultrium devices will only be supported for access/usage by certified 3rd party supplied back-up products;

certified products are currently limited to:

• BACKUP+/iX (ORBiT Software Inc., http://www.orbitsw.com/ )

• HiBack® (Mount10 Group, http://www.mount10.com/ ).

Ultrium Tape devices are NOT supported for any other traditional MPE/iX tape functions including, but not

limited to: System boot, SYSGEN, HP Store/Restore, HP TurboStore, general file system access, user logging,

FCOPY, Sherlock diagnostics, etc. These restriction are in place due to incompatibilities between MPE/iX

tape usage patterns and Ultrium implementation assumptions which can lead to unacceptably poor

performance. In most of these cases, there are no actual blocks in place to prevent using Ultrium;

nevertheless, such usage is NOT supported.

There is one small exception: The program devtool.pub.sys and the command file devctrl.mpexl.telesup

may be used to load/unload media but it will NOT support turning compression on/off for Ultrium. HP

Ultrium incorporates “intelligent” compression that prevents attempts to compress data that is already

compressed so there is no need to explicitly turn device level (hardware) compression on or off.