IBM Linear Tape File System Enterprise Edition V1.1.1.2: Installation and Configuration Guide

IBM Linear Tape File System Enterprise Edition V1.1.1.2: Installation and Configuration Guide

by Larry Coyne, Khanh Ngo, Stefan Neff
Released January 2015
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication helps you with the planning, installation, and configuration of the new IBM Linear Tape File System™ (LTFS) Enterprise Edition (EE) V1.1.1.2 for the IBM TS3310, IBM TS3500, and IBM TS4500 tape libraries. LTFS EE enables the use of LTFS for the policy management of tape as a storage tier in an IBM General Parallel File System (IBM GPFS™) based environment and helps encourage the use of tape as a critical tier in the storage environment.

LTFS EE can run any application that is designed for disk files on tape. LTFS EE supports IBM Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Ultrium 6 and 5 tape drives in IBM TS3310, TS3500, and TS4500 tape libraries. IBM TS1140 and IBM TS1150 tape drives are supported in TS3500 and TS4500 tape libraries.

LTFS EE can play a major role in reducing the cost of storage for data that does not need the access performance of primary disk. The use of LTFS EE to replace disks with tape in Tier 2 and Tier 3 storage can improve data access over other storage solutions because it improves efficiency and streamlines management for files on tape. LTFS EE simplifies the use of tape by making it transparent to the user and manageable by the administrator under a single infrastructure.

This publication is intended for anyone who wants to understand more about LTFS EE planning and implementation. This book is suitable for IBM clients, IBM Business Partners, IBM specialist sales representatives, and technical specialists.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. IBM Redbooks promotions
  4. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  5. Summary of changes
    1. January 2015, Third Edition
    2. November 2014, Second Edition
  6. Chapter 1. IBM Linear Tape File System Enterprise Edition
    1. 1.1 Introduction
      1. 1.1.1 Operational storage
      2. 1.1.2 Active archive
    2. 1.2 LTFS EE functions
    3. 1.3 LTFS EE components
    4. 1.4 LTFS EE cluster configuration introduction
    5. 1.5 LTFS tape format
      1. 1.5.1 LTFS tape format compatibility
    6. 1.6 Data access by using the LTFS index
  7. Chapter 2. IBM Linear Tape File System overview
    1. 2.1 Introduction to LTFS
      1. 2.1.1 Tape partitions
      2. 2.1.2 Index
      3. 2.1.3 Filesystem in Userspace
      4. 2.1.4 XML schema
    2. 2.2 Comparison of LTFS products
      1. 2.2.1 LTFS Single Drive Edition
      2. 2.2.2 LTFS Library Edition
      3. 2.2.3 LTFS Storage Manager
      4. 2.2.4 LTFS EE
    3. 2.3 GPFS
      1. 2.3.1 Overview
      2. 2.3.2 Storage pools
      3. 2.3.3 Policies and policy rules
      4. 2.3.4 Migration or premigration
      5. 2.3.5 GPFS new features and enhancements
    4. 2.4 Tivoli Storage Manager HSM
    5. 2.5 Types of archiving
  8. Chapter 3. Planning
    1. 3.1 System requirements
    2. 3.2 Required software
      1. 3.2.1 Required software for Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems
      2. 3.2.2 Required software for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server systems
    3. 3.3 Hardware and software setup
    4. 3.4 Sizing and settings
      1. 3.4.1 GPFS block size
      2. 3.4.2 LTFS EE metadata file system
      3. 3.4.3 Redundant copies
      4. 3.4.4 Assigning tapes to tape cartridge pools for maximum I/O
      5. 3.4.5 Performance
  9. Chapter 4. Installation
    1. 4.1 Installing LTFS EE on a Linux system
    2. 4.2 Installation prerequisites for LTFS EE
      1. 4.2.1 Installing required software on a Linux system
      2. 4.2.2 Installing the host bus adapter and device driver
      3. 4.2.3 LTFS EE distribution of packages for Linux
      4. 4.2.4 Installing the IBM tape device driver
    3. 4.3 Installing LTFS EE
      1. 4.3.1 Extracting binary rpm files from an LTFS EE installation package
      2. 4.3.2 Installing, upgrading, or uninstalling LTFS EE
      3. 4.3.3 Removing LTFS EE binary rpm files from a Linux server system
    4. 4.4 Upgrading the IBM tape library or tape drive firmware
      1. 4.4.1 Downloading operator guides for IBM tape libraries and drives
      2. 4.4.2 Upgrading the IBM TS3500 tape library firmware
      3. 4.4.3 Upgrading IBM tape drive firmware
    5. 4.5 Creating a logical library and defining tape drives
      1. 4.5.1 Creating a logical library for LTFS EE
      2. 4.5.2 Assigning tape drives to the LTFS EE logical library
      3. 4.5.3 Assigning the control path tape devices
      4. 4.5.4 Assigning tape media for LTFS EE within the logical library
    6. 4.6 Quick installation guide for LTFS EE
  10. Chapter 5. Configuration
    1. 5.1 Configuration prerequisites
      1. 5.1.1 Configuration worksheet tables
      2. 5.1.2 Obtaining configuration information
      3. 5.1.3 Configuring key-based login with OpenSSH
      4. 5.1.4 Preparing the GPFS file system for LTFS EE
      5. 5.1.5 Enabling control paths in the logical library
    2. 5.2 Configuring LTFS EE
      1. 5.2.1 ltfsee_config utility
      2. 5.2.2 Configuring a single node cluster
      3. 5.2.3 Configuring a multiple node cluster
      4. 5.2.4 Modifying the configuration
    3. 5.3 First-time start of LTFS EE
  11. Chapter 6. Overview of IBM Linear Tape File System Enterprise Editioncommands
    1. 6.1 LTFS EE command summaries
  12. Chapter 7. Operations
    1. 7.1 Overview
      1. 7.1.1 Using the command-line interface
    2. 7.2 Status information
      1. 7.2.1 GPFS
      2. 7.2.2 LTFS LE+ component
      3. 7.2.3 Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management
      4. 7.2.4 LTFS EE
    3. 7.3 Upgrading components
      1. 7.3.1 GPFS
      2. 7.3.2 LTFS LE+ component
      3. 7.3.3 Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management
      4. 7.3.4 LTFS EE
    4. 7.4 Starting and stopping LTFS EE
      1. 7.4.1 Starting LTFS EE
      2. 7.4.2 Stopping LTFS EE
    5. 7.5 Tape library management
      1. 7.5.1 Adding tape cartridges
      2. 7.5.2 Removing tape cartridges
      3. 7.5.3 Moving tape cartridges
      4. 7.5.4 Formatting tape cartridges
      5. 7.5.5 Removing tape drives
      6. 7.5.6 Adding tape drives
    6. 7.6 Tape storage pool management
      1. 7.6.1 Creating tape cartridge pools
      2. 7.6.2 Deleting tape cartridge pools
    7. 7.7 Migration
      1. 7.7.1 Managing file migration pools
      2. 7.7.2 Automated migration
      3. 7.7.3 Manual migration
      4. 7.7.4 Replicas and redundant copies
      5. 7.7.5 Migration hints and tips
    8. 7.8 Premigration
      1. 7.8.1 Premigration with the ltfsee premigrate command
      2. 7.8.2 Premigration running the mmapplypolicy command
    9. 7.9 Preserving file system objects on tape
      1. 7.9.1 Saving file system objects with the ltfsee save command
      2. 7.9.2 Saving file system objects with a GPFS policy and mmapplypolicy
    10. 7.10 Restoring non-empty regular files and file system objects from tape
    11. 7.11 Recall
      1. 7.11.1 Transparent recall
      2. 7.11.2 Selective recall
      3. 7.11.3 Recalling files with the ltfsee recall command
      4. 7.11.4 The ltfsee recall_deadline command
      5. 7.11.5 Read Starts Recalls: Early trigger for recalling a migrated file
    12. 7.12 Repairing files to their resident state
    13. 7.13 Recovering data from a write-failure tape
    14. 7.14 Reconciliation
    15. 7.15 Reclamation
    16. 7.16 Checking and repairing
    17. 7.17 Importing and exporting
      1. 7.17.1 Importing
      2. 7.17.2 Exporting
    18. 7.18 Obtaining the location of files and data
    19. 7.19 Obtaining inventory, job, and scan status
    20. 7.20 Cleaning up a scan or session
    21. 7.21 Monitoring the system with SNMP
      1. 7.21.1 Installing Net-SNMP
      2. 7.21.2 Configuring Net-SNMP
      3. 7.21.3 Starting and stopping the snmpd daemon
      4. 7.21.4 Example of an SNMP traps
  13. Chapter 8. Hints, tips, and preferred practices
    1. 8.1 Preventing migration of the .SPACEMAN and dcache directories
    2. 8.2 Maximizing migration performance with redundant copies
    3. 8.3 Changing the SSH daemon settings
    4. 8.4 Setting job limits to increase performance when the number of jobs becomes large
    5. 8.5 Setting the GPFS mmapplypolicy options for increased performance
    6. 8.6 Setting the inode size for the GPFS file system for increased performance
    7. 8.7 Determining the file states for all files within the GPFS file system
    8. 8.8 Increasing the default maximum number of inodes in GPFS
    9. 8.9 How to capture a core file on RHEL with abrtd
    10. 8.10 Antivirus considerations
    11. 8.11 Automatic email notification with rsyslog
    12. 8.12 Overlapping GPFS policy rules
    13. 8.13 Storage pool assignment
    14. 8.14 Tape cartridge removal
      1. 8.14.1 Reclaiming tape cartridges before you remove or export them
      2. 8.14.2 Exporting tape cartridges before physically removing them from the library
    15. 8.15 Reusing LTFS formatted tape cartridges
      1. 8.15.1 Reformatting LTFS tape cartridges through ltfsee commands
    16. 8.16 Reusing non-LTFS tape cartridges
    17. 8.17 Moving tape cartridges between pools
      1. 8.17.1 Avoiding changing assignments for tape cartridges that contain files
      2. 8.17.2 Reclaiming a tape cartridge and changing its tape cartridge pool assignment
    18. 8.18 Offline tape cartridges
      1. 8.18.1 Do not modify the files of offline tape cartridges
      2. 8.18.2 Solving problems
    19. 8.19 Scheduling reconciliation and reclamation
    20. 8.20 License Expiration Handling
    21. 8.21 Reassigning physical tape cartridges to another logical tape library
    22. 8.22 Disaster recovery
      1. 8.22.1 Tiers of disaster recovery
      2. 8.22.2 Preparing LTFS EE for a Tier 1 disaster recovery strategy (offsite vaulting)
      3. 8.22.3 LTFS EE Tier 1 DR procedure
    23. 8.23 LTFS EE problem determination
    24. 8.24 Collecting LTFS EE logs for support
    25. 8.25 Backing up file systems that are not managed by LTFS EE
      1. 8.25.1 Considerations
      2. 8.25.2 Backing up a GPFS
      3. 8.25.3 Backing up non GPFSs
  14. Chapter 9. Use cases
    1. 9.1 Use cases overview
      1. 9.1.1 Use case for archiving
      2. 9.1.2 Use case for backup
      3. 9.1.3 Use case for tiered and scalable storage
      4. 9.1.4 Use case data exchange
    2. 9.2 University of Basel and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
      1. 9.2.1 Business needs
  15. Chapter 10. Troubleshooting
    1. 10.1 Overview
      1. 10.1.1 Quick health check
    2. 10.2 Hardware
      1. 10.2.1 Tape library
      2. 10.2.2 Tape drives
      3. 10.2.3 Tape cartridge
    3. 10.3 Software
      1. 10.3.1 Linux
      2. 10.3.2 SNMP
      3. 10.3.3 GPFS
      4. 10.3.4 LTFS LE+ component
      5. 10.3.5 Hierarchical storage management
      6. 10.3.6 LTFS EE
    4. 10.4 Recovering from system failures
      1. 10.4.1 Power failure
      2. 10.4.2 Mechanical failure
      3. 10.4.3 Inventory failure
      4. 10.4.4 Abnormal termination
  16. Chapter 11. Reference
    1. 11.1 Command-line reference
      1. 11.1.1 LTFS EE commands
      2. 11.1.2 GPFS commands
      3. 11.1.3 Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management commands
    2. 11.2 Data and metadata formats for GPFS to LTFS migrations
    3. 11.3 System calls and IBM tools
      1. 11.3.1 Downloading the IBM Tape Diagnostic Tool
      2. 11.3.2 Using the IBM LTFS Format Verifier
    4. 11.4 LTFS EE interoperability with other LTFS products
  17. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  18. Back cover
  19. IBM System x Reference Architecture for Hadoop: IBM InfoSphere BigInsights Reference Architecture
    1. Introduction
    2. Business problem and business value
    3. Reference architecture use
    4. Requirements
    5. InfoSphere BigInsights predefined configuration
    6. InfoSphere BigInsights HBase predefined configuration
    7. Deployment considerations
    8. Customizing the predefined configurations
    9. Predefined configuration bill of materials
    10. References
    11. The team who wrote this paper
    12. Now you can become a published author, too!
    13. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  20. Notices
    1. Trademarks

Product information

  • Title: IBM Linear Tape File System Enterprise Edition V1.1.1.2: Installation and Configuration Guide
  • Author(s): Larry Coyne, Khanh Ngo, Stefan Neff
  • Release date: January 2015
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None