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Note: Oversubscription: Oversubscription is the ability to create more virtual tape cartridges than the virtual library's physical disk space would seem to allow. For instance, you might create 50 virtual 200GB LTO-2 cartridges in either the 1.5TB VLS1000i or the 2.5TB VLS6105.To allocate that much space at one time would require 20TB of physical disk, far more than is available. This oversubscription is possible because the HP Virtual library products allocate space to virtual tapes only as it is needed, in 1GB 'chunks'. Therefore, those 50 cartridges use only 50GB of the available space until you actually start to perform backup jobs. If the VLS is oversubscribed, the backup administrator will need to manage the space through migration of data to physical tape and data expiration policies. Oversubscription is always enabled on the VLS1000i; it may be enabled or disabled on the VLS6000 family.
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| The HP VLS products are easily configured through the provided web browser interface, using either the Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers. The web interface contains easy-to-use screens that help you create virtual libraries, virtual tape drives, and virtual tape cartridges, monitor VLS capacities used (ex: number of drives or cartridges created vs. the maximum allowed), check VLS and component health, and perform other administrative functions.
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| The VLS1000i allows for creation of up to 12 virtual tape drives. These 12 drives can be configured as standalone LTO2 tape drives or as LTO2 1/8 autoloaders. Note: You may configure up to 6 virtual LTO2 tape drives in the 1/8 autoloader format. A total of 180 virtual tape cartridges can be created, with a maximum of 108 per autoloader.
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| The VLS 6000 series supports creation of up to 64 virtual tape drives; those drives may be allocated to up to 16 virtual libraries or autoloaders. You can create up to 1024 virtual tape cartridges in the VLS6000.
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| Note: If you choose to create a virtual standalone tape drive in the VLS1000i, the virtual cartridge can not be 'unloaded' when full; the data must be copied to another (virtual or physical) tape cartridge if desired, and the virtual tape cartridge formatted to reclaim the used space. With the VLS6000, a tape can be moved from a drive to the Firesafe location where it can be stored or moved to a different drive.
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| With either VLS product, it is easy to create and destroy virtual devices as a way of gaining familiarity with the virtual library and its capabilities.
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| The HP VLS 6000 family has other configuration options you may wish to explore. The VLS6000 has a LUN masking feature that enables you to restrict host access to individual LUNs. This is helpful if you have several backup servers and want to restrict each server to using only one virtual library and tape drive.
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| Tip: Both the VLS1000i and VLS6000 series enable you to assign bar codes to the virtual tape cartridges, just as you would assign bar codes to physical tapes. The backup software can use bar coding to catalog and track each virtual tape
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| After you configure the VLS, you should test it to ensure that it works properly.
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