Release notes for Tivoli Storage Manager device support Version 7.1

Tivoli® Storage Manager device support for V7.1 is available. Compatibility, installation, and other getting-started issues are addressed.

Contents

Description

This document includes information about Tivoli Storage Manager V7.1 device drivers.

To view device-related APAR fixes for Tivoli Storage Manager V7.1, see Technote 1652111 at http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21652111.

Announcement

Tivoli Storage Manager device support for V7.1 is announced as part of the Tivoli Storage Manager family of products announcement. The announcement is available at http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi.

See the announcement for the following information:
  • Detailed product description, including descriptions of new functions
  • Product-positioning statement
  • Packaging and ordering details
  • International compatibility information
To search for the product announcement, complete the following steps:
  1. Go to the product announcement website at http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi.
  2. In the Search for field, enter the product identifier (PID) for your product. The PID for Tivoli Storage Manager is 5608-E01.
  3. In the Information Type field, select Announcement letters, and click Search.
  4. From the Search in list, select Product Number.
  5. Optional: In the Refine Your Search pane on the left side of the window, select the country where you reside.
  6. In the Sort by section, select Newest first.

Supported devices

For information about supported devices and hardware for IBM AIX®, HP-UX, Oracle Solaris, and Microsoft Windows systems, see http://www.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/IBM_TSM_Supported_Devices_for_AIXHPSUNWIN.html.

For information about supported devices and hardware for Linux systems, see http://www.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/IBM_TSM_Supported_Devices_for_Linux.html.

Device driver updates

All new devices are supported on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows operating systems unless indicated otherwise. For complete specifications, see the following websites:

New drives
New support

Device driver requirements

Host bus adapter requirements
For best results, connect tape drives and tape libraries to the system on their own host bus adapter. Do not share the host bus adapter with other device types, such as DISK or CD.
Maximum number of devices that are supported by Tivoli Storage Manager device drivers
For information about the maximum number of devices that Tivoli Storage Manager device drivers can support on each operating system, see Technote 1364225.
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) device support
SAS devices can be used on some operating systems and architectures. For information about operating systems and architectures for SAS devices, see Technote 1396706.
Core mode support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012
The Server Core option is supported for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012. For information about configuring devices in core mode, see Technote 1320150.
Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver support for HP-UX 11i version 3
For information about configuring devices for the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver on HP-UX, see Techdoc 7011793.
Support for the esctl SCSI pass-through driver on HP-UX
The Tivoli Storage Manager passthru device driver supports the esctl SCSI pass-through driver on HP-UX 11i version 3 for the IA-64 architecture. For information about how to reconfigure devices that are controlled by the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver on HP-UX 11i version 3 IA-64, see Technote 1383169.
Running the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver with a non-root user ID on HP-UX
Use option -g or -a of the device autoconf utility to ensure that non-root users can use devices that are configured with the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver. Use option -g to add read and write permissions for groups to Tivoli Storage Manager device files. Use option -a to add read and write permissions for all users to Tivoli Storage Manager device files.
Optical devices on Oracle Solaris
On Oracle Solaris, if the Volume Management daemon (vold) is enabled, it can manage and control the optical devices that are used by the Tivoli Storage Manager server. To prevent the Volume Management daemon from managing removable disks, including optical devices, comment out the following line in the /etc/vold.conf file:

use rmdisk drive /dev/rdsk/c*s2 dev_rmdisk.so rmdisk%d

You can also modify the /etc/vold.conf file to ensure that specific devices that are not used by the Tivoli Storage Manager server can be used by the Volume Management daemon. For more information, see the man page for vold.conf.

Emulex HBA driver for Oracle Solaris SPARC
To avoid Tivoli Storage Manager server hangs, install the latest level of the Emulex HBA driver on Oracle Solaris SPARC. For more information, see Technote 1217457.
Running the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver with a non-root user ID on Linux operating systems
For information about how a non-root user can use devices with the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver on Linux, see Technote 1321130. Use option -g or -a of the device autoconf utility to ensure that non-root users can use devices that are configured with the Tivoli Storage Manager passthru driver. Use option -g to add read and write permissions for groups to the SCSI generic driver (sg) device files. Use option -a to add read and write permissions for all users to the sg device files.

Library information

  • IBM® Tivoli Storage Manager Extended Edition is required for a library with greater than four drives or greater than 48 storage slots.
  • The element addresses of the storage slots might not directly correspond to the storage slot numbers. This fact is important because the Tivoli Storage Manager server always references storage slots by element addresses, not storage slot numbers. For element addresses, see the library configuration page for each library.
  • For a library with multiple drives, a drive element address is required for the DEFINE and UPDATE DRIVE commands. However, if the library reports drive serial numbers, you can specify ELEMENT=AUTODETECT, and the element address is not required.
  • For the procedure to configure the autochanger and each drive in the library separately, see Configuring and managing storage devices.

Updates, limitations, and known problems

Updates
Some devices that were supported by previous releases of Tivoli Storage Manager are no longer supported by the Tivoli Storage Manager V7.1 server. For the latest list of supported devices, see the following links:

To search for the latest updates, limitations, and known problems, which might include additional items, see Updates, limitations, and known problems for Tivoli Storage Manager V7.1 device support.