Spectra T950 - Storage Partitions

Chapter 2 — Architecture Overview Library Partitions
November 2016 User Guide—Spectra T950 Library
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Storage Partitions
Overview Thelibraryrequires,ataminimum,onestoragepartition.This
isthedefaultconfiguration.Eachstoragepartitionmusthaveatleastone
driveandonechamberinitsstoragepool.Drivesandchamberscanonly
beassignedtoonestoragepartitionatatime;theycannotbesharedby
multiplepartitions.
Whenadditionalpartitionsareneeded,thelibraryusesSharedLibrary
Services(SLS)virtualizationtechnologytocreatetheadditionalpartitions.
SLSsupportisanoptionyoucanaddtothelibrarybypurchasingan
activationkeyfromSpectraLogic.
Insomeenvironments,usingmultiplestoragepartitionsiscrucialtodata
centerefficiencyandgrowth. Forexample,multiplepartitionsare
extremelyusefulinthefollowingsituations:
Multiple Storage Management Software Packages Ifgroupswithinyour
companyusedifferentstoragemanagementsoftwarepackages,each
softwarepackagerequiresitsowndedicatedlibrary. Insteadof
maintainingmultiplephysicallibraries—oneperbackuppackage—the
datacentercanuseasingleSpectraLogiclibrarywithmultiplepartitions,
inwhicheachpartitionappearstothesoftwareasadedicatedlibrary.
Multiple Databases Ifyourcompanyusesmultipledatabases,partitioning
thelibrarypreservesthebackupprocessesassociatedwitheachtypeof
database.
Shared Resources Ifeachdepartmentinthecompanymustkeeptheir
datasegregated,partitioningthelibrarysuppliesthissegregation,aswell
asthesubsequentintegrityofthedataset.Eachpartitioncanonlyaccess
thedrivesandcartridgelocationsassignedtoit.Datafromotherpartitions
cannotbecomeintermixedwiththedatastoredonthemediainthe
partition’sinventory.
Multiple Drive Generations Ifyourdatacenterusesmultiplegenerations
ofLTOdrives,SpectraLogicstronglyrecommendsconfiguringseparate
partitionsforeachgenerationtoensureread/writecompatibilitybetween
thedrivesandcartridges.
Encryption Ifyouwanttoencryptsome,butnotallofyourbackupdata,
youcanpartitionthelibraryintoanencryptionpartitionandnon‐
encryptionpartitiontosegregatethetwotypesofdata.