Solaris Tape and Medium Changer Device Driver

Purpose

This device driver product provides attachment for IBM Magnetic Tape and Library System products to Oracle SPARC and x64 Servers running the Solaris operating system.

It is designed specifically to take advantage of the features that are provided by IBM tape and library systems. It also includes control of the random access medium changer facility (move, element information, and inventory) present in some devices. The goal is to give applications access to the functions required for basic operations (such as backup and restore). The goal also includes the advanced functions that are needed by full tape management systems. Whenever possible, the device driver is designed to take advantage of the IBM tape system features transparent to the application.

Data flow

Both data and commands flow between the application program and the tape subsystem by way of IBMtape. Figure 1 shows the data flow between IBMtape, the application program, the SCSI adapter device driver, and the IBM tape system.