The IBM Could Tape Connector (CTC) APAR PH60250 (UI97067) provides a new enhancement called "Direct-Write-to-Cloud (DWC/D2C)" which allows users to store virtual tape data written by applications directly in cloud storage without using intermediate disk storage. This process is completely transparent to the applications writing to the virtual tapes and reduces the on-prem disk storage requirement to store virtual tape data.

In addition to lowering the on-prem disk storage requirement, users can save costs by leveraging less expensive public cloud storage like cloud object storage tiers for cold data. DWC/D2C also reduces CPU consumption needed to place tape volumes on the cloud.

To achieve direct-write-to-cloud, the VTE (Virtual Tape Emulator) server coordinates with the CTC server to push the data to cloud storage. Although tape data is written to cloud storage directly, reading the tape data is NOT performed from the cloud directly.

When an application tries to read a tape dataset written directly from the cloud (or tries to stack a new dataset on the same volume), the VTE server restores the virtual tape dataset from the cloud to the disk, and the tape data is read from the disk.

Please refer to the user guide for more details regarding how to set up this new feature.

When the VTE is brought up using DWC/D2C, users will see the "HVTDIR1" message as below.

When the VTE starts uploading tape volume directly to the cloud, users will see the "HVTDIRI9" message in the VTE log,

When the VTE completes uploading tape volume directly to the cloud, users will see the "HVTDIRI12" message in the VTE log,

Documentation:

Product page: Link
User Guide: Link

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