IBM Spectrum Protect tape device drivers

The IBM Spectrum Protect™ server provides tape device drivers.

An IBM Spectrum Protect tape device driver is installed with the server.

AIX operating systems

You can use the generic SCSI tape device driver that is provided by the IBM® AIX® operating system to work with tape devices that are not supported by the IBM Spectrum Protect device driver. If the AIX generic SCSI tape device driver is used, the GENERICTAPE device class must be set to the device type that is specified in the DEFINE DEVCLASS command.

For the following tape devices, you can choose whether to install the IBM Spectrum Protect tape device driver or the native device driver for your operating system:
  • ECART
  • LTO (not from IBM)

All SCSI-attached libraries that contain tape drives from the list must use the IBM Spectrum Protect changer driver.

Tape device drivers that are acquired from other hardware vendors can be used if they are associated with the GENERICTAPE device class. Generic device drivers are not supported in write-one read-many (WORM) device classes.

Linux operating systems

You can use the IBM Spectrum Protect Passthru device driver. IBM Spectrum Protect Passthru device drivers require the Linux SCSI generic (sg) device driver along with the Linux operating system to install the kernels.

For example, you can install the IBM Spectrum Protect Passthru device driver for the following tape devices:
  • ECART
  • LTO (not from IBM)
All SCSI-attached libraries that contain tape drives that are not IBM labeled from the list must also use the IBM Spectrum Protect Passthru device driver.

You cannot use the generic SCSI tape (st) device driver that is provided by the Linux operating system. Therefore, the GENERICTAPE device type is not supported for the DEFINE DEVCLASS command.

Windows operating systemsYou can select a Windows Hardware Qualification Lab certified native device driver instead of the IBM Spectrum Protect device driver. The Windows Hardware Qualification Lab certified native device driver can be used only for devices that have a non-IBM label and for non-IBM tape drives. For the Windows Hardware Qualification Lab certified native device driver, you can select either the IBM Spectrum Protect SCSI passthru device driver or the Windows native tape device driver. If the SCSI passthru device driver is used, the device class on the DEFINE DEVCLASS command cannot be GENERICTAPE. If the native device driver is used, the device class must be GENERICTAPE.