Virtual storage

This storage solutions topic covers only the IBM® i virtual storage solutions that store media images on your disk units or in the network file system and client virtual devices. The following types of virtual storage solutions are available for IBM i.

• Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) partition owned physical tape devices, physical optical devices, and virtual optical devices can be used by IBM i partitions. See the PowerVM® Editions for information on how to set up these devices to be used from an IBM i partition.
• Virtual Tape Library devices. Virtual Tape Library devices are external devices that emulate a tape library device but store data on disk instead of on tape media. Check the documentation for your specific Virtual Tape Library device for information on how to set up these devices to be used by an IBM i partition.
• IBM i virtual storage. The IBM i operating system provides virtual tape and virtual optical solutions that imitate tape, CD, DVD, write-once read-many (WORM), and erasable optical media on your disk units, or in the network file system for virtual optical. The imitated media appear to the system to be actual media.
• Client virtual devices (optical and tape). An IBM i partition running on an IBM Power System, Power6 or later, can share a natively attached optical device, a natively attached tape device, or an IBM i virtual optical device (optical image catalog) with IBM i client partitions.