News
Managing Media in Networked Environments
Michael Kramer
B&L Associates, Inc.
220 Reservoir Street, Ste. 15
Needham, MA 02494 USA
(781) 444-1404/5805 fax
mkramer@bandl.com
ABSTRACT
Fibre channels have driven up the capacity and flexibility of storage environments. Distributed storage throughout the organization requires disciplined storage tape management and increases the complexity of managing the physical media when it is removed from the network for backup or archival purposes.
Tape management in distributed environments presents both management and technical challenges that must be addressed. Media management issues include defining responsibilities and policies across the enterprise; technical issues include implementing the policies and compensating for the less sophisticated logging utilities of open systems. In today's environment only the approaches that successfully address both the management and technical issues are successful.
MANAGING MEDIA IN NETWORKED ENVIRONMENTS
The advent of fibre channels has fundamentally changed storage management. Fibre channel Storage Area Networks (SANs) extend the distributed capabilities of open systems. These systems, although they have not completely supplanted centralized mainframe systems, have taken over many of the enterprise-wide, mission-critical functions once reserved for mainframes. This expanded role requires more capable network communications that, in turn, enable more distributed storage options.
Yet this "democratization" of storage presents its own set of challenges. How do system managers ensure that the physical media from every online and near-online storage device is handled properly when it is backed up or archived to offline storage? Tape Management becomes even more complex when mixed operating systems with decentralized schemes are involved.
SANs provide a high level of control since the data files remain in the same networked environment. Once media leaves the control of online storage systems the potential for it to be misplaced, lost, or inadvertently reused is much higher. Many large data center managers attempt to apply the same procedures and technologies used for mainframe system tape management to open systems. Although this can be achieved, certain administrative issues and technical issues must be addressed.
