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3.4. Hardware Considerations
This section describes the hardware infrastructure needed to operate HPSS and includes
considerations about infrastructure installation and operation that may impact HPSS.
3.4.1. Network Considerations
Because of its distributed nature and high-performance requirements, an HPSS system is highly
dependent on the networks providing connectivity among the HPSS servers and clients.
For control communications (i.e., all communications except the actual transfer of data) among the
HPSS clients and servers, HPSS requires TCP/IP services. Since control requests and replies are
relatively small in size, a low-latency network usually is well suited to handling the control path.
The data path is logically separate from the control path and may also be physically separate,
although this is not required. For the data path, HPSS supports the same TCP/IP networks as those
supported for the control path. For supporting large data transfers, the latency of the network is less
important than the overall data throughput.
HPSS also supports a special data path option that may indirectly affect network planning because it
may off-load or shift some of the networking load. This option uses the shared memory data transfer
method, which provides for intra-node transfers between either Movers or Movers and HPSS clients
via a shared memory segment.
Along with shared memory, HPSS also supports a Local File Transfer data path for client transfers
that involve HPSS Movers that have access to the client's file system. In this case, the HPSS Mover
can be configured to transfer the data directly to or from the client’s file.
3.4.2. Robotically Mounted Tape
All HPSS PVRs are capable of sharing a robot with other tape management systems but care must be
taken when allocating drives among multiple robot users. If it is necessary to share a drive between
HPSS and another tape management system, the drive can be configured in the HPSS PVR but left in
the LOCKED state until it is needed. When needed by HPSS, the drive should be set to UNLOCKED
and should not be used by any other tape management system while in this state. This is critical
because HPSS periodically polls all of its unlocked drives even if they are not currently mounted or
in use.
Generally, only one HPSS PVR is required per robot. However, it is possible for multiple PVRs to
manage a single robot in order to provide drive and tape partitions within a robot. The drives in the
robot must be partitioned among the PVRs and no drive should be configured in more than one PVR.
Each tape is assigned to exactly one PVR when it is imported into the HPSS system and will only be
mounted in drives managed by that PVR.
The tape libraries supported by HPSS are:
• IBM 3494
• IBM 3582, 3583, 3584 (LTO). These libraries are now being called the IBM TS3500.
• Spectralogic T120 (LTO, SAIT)
• STK L40 (LTO)
HPSS Installation Guide July 2008
Release 6.2 (Revision 2.0) 62