Originally posted by: Nils Haustein
The new LTFS Enterprise Edition (LTFS EE) release 1.1.1.1 is now available. There are many new functions in this release. I want to show you the most exciting ones, some of them I tested in our Lab.
Tape Libraries TS4500 and TS3310 are supported: In addition to the TS3500 two new IBM tape libraries are supported. The TS3310 allows creating small LTFS EE solutions, perhaps leveraging the LTFS EE entry configuration bundle. With the TS4500 enterprise solutions with LTFS EE can be established.
LTFS EE recall command: Allows recalling multiple files in parallel whereby the files are recalled in an ordered manner. This means files are grouped by the tape-ID and by the position on the tape before they are recalled. This makes recalls of multiple files or entire directories really quick because files are recalled in parallel from multiple tapes.
LTFS EE also supports the “Read starts recall” mode. Imagine large video files are being migrated and the first few megabytes of the files are kept in the GPFS file system (within the stub) for fast access. With the “read starts recall” mode the administrator can define a threshold at which the recall is initiated. The threshold denotes a subset of the number of bytes included in the stub file.
LTFS EE rebuild command: Allows rebuilding files, directories or the file system from tapes without exporting tapes prior. Similar to the import command only the file metadata (stubs) are restored, saving a lot of time by not transferring all files from the tapes to the file system.
LTFS EE save command: Allows saving certain files such as symbolic links, empty files and empty directories – which are usually not migrated - to tape. This provides a consistent image of the file systems and directories on LTFS tape which can be restored using the LTFS EE rebuild command.
LTFS EE now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (RHEL) 6.5, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and GPFS 3.5
I think these new functions are a milestone for the LTFS EE product because they make recalls more efficient, allow easier and faster recoveries and support state of the art infrastructure. For more information about LTFS Enterprise Editions see the new LTFS EE Infocenter.
References:
LTFS EE InfoCenter What’s New:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/ltfsee/cust/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.storage.hollywood.doc%2Fltfs_ee_whats_new.html
LTFS EE Bundles Announcement:
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=AN&subtype=CA&htmlfid=897/ENUS214-080&appname=USN
LTFS EE Home page:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/tape/ltfs-ee/index.html
LTFS EE Infocenter:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/ltfsee/cust/index.jsp