4 Managing media

This chapter includes the following topics:

•Introduction, page 91

•FSE media pools, page 91

•FSE media, page 98

Introduction

The way you manage FSE media can significantly increase the stability and performance of your FSE implementation. Managing media consists of tasks that are related to the media life cycle, from formatting, initialization and optional duplication for data vaulting, to replacing worn-out media and media reorganization.

FSE supports several media types, which are grouped into appropriate media pools. These media pools are created by the FSE administrator according to their purpose, for example, a backup pool for media is used only for backup and holds only one type of media.

All media must be formatted and initialized before they can be used for data storage by FSE. Then you are able to track media pools and media, review their characteristics and statuses, make exact copies of your media, or decide on multiple copies made at once. For specifics regarding disk media, see ”Disk media” on page 99.

FSE media pools

An FSE media pool is common storage for the migrated HSM file system data. It groups media of the same type into a logical unit, which is tracked as a group. All media in the same FSE media pool share such characteristics as number of medium volumes, availability of system volumes, capacity of medium volumes, and so on (see ”FSE media” on page 98 for more information on media types and characteristics). Media in the same media pool can be located in multiple FSE tape libraries or disk systems.

A media pool is related to one FSE partition only and cannot be assigned to more than one partition. However, an FSE partition can have more than one media pool assigned to it, but the assigned media pools must be either regular or WORM. The number of media pools assigned to the FSE partition determines the number of copies to be made. For more information on multiple copying, see ”Multiple copying” on page 147.

The procedures in this section provide instructions for:

•Media pool types and their characteristics, page 91

•Configuring a media pool, page 92

•Determining the configured media pools, page 95

•Checking the status of a particular media pool, page 97

Media pool types and their characteristics

The media pool type is defined in the media pool configuration file. Location of configuration templates is platform-dependent.

Linux specific

Configuration templates for FSE media pools are located in the directory /opt/fse/newconfig.

Windows specific

Configuration templates for FSE media pools are located in the directory %InstallPath%\newconfig.

The value of %InstallPath% depends on the choice made in the FSE installation process. It defaults to C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\FSE.

For more information on editing templates, see ”Configuration basics” on page 38. Examples of FSE media pool configuration are listed in the next section, ”Configuring a media pool” on page 92.

HP StorageWorks File System Extender Software user guide 91