Recovery & Restoration of Data from Virtual Tape
eMag Solutions has achieved a technological breakthrough in accessing and restoring discoverable data directly from "virtual tape" created from a mainframe environment. The result of this achievement will be the substantial savings of time and money for organizations needing to restore archive tapes in volume from a mainframe environment. The innovative technology experts at eMag Solutions have developed the ability to read and restore discoverable data directly from virtual tape without having to recreate any part of the original mainframe environment. Moreover, the breakthrough includes the ability to restore virtual tape without over-taxing the data center's production capacity.
Download link to datasheetVSM (Virtual Storage Manager) software virtualizes tape drives within a hardware appliance that:
- Connects to IBM or Unisys Mainframes.
- Acts like multiple physical tape drives.
- Stores tape volumes virtually.
- Keeps active volumes cached.
- Writes volumes that are less active to physical tape.
What happens when organizations need to restore archive tapes in volume from a mainframe environment?
RTV - "Real Tape Volume" is a physical tape with one logical volume.
VTV - "Virtual Tape Volume" is a backup tape that exists in a VSM cache or on a migration tape.
Migration Tape - A physical archive tape produced by the VSM. Each tape contains multiple VTVs.
The Problem: Since emails are now being backed up via mainframe, there is a need to recover more virtual tape volumes for litigation purposes.
HOWEVER; VTVs cannot be read like RTVs. They contain the same data, but cannot be accessed in the same way.
Traditional Tape Backup Within UNIX or Windows environment
Virtual Tape Backup From data created in Windows/UNIX environment
The Challenge:
To turn VTVs into RTVs, a client must read migration tapes back into a VSM and then access volumes through the backup app. This reduces production volume.
Clients can turn VTVs into RTVs using Sun's native "RTV Utility" but this is time-consuming.
Sun's RTV Utility is not licensed separately.
The Solution
-eMag Solutions allows organizations to read and restore discoverable data directly from Virtual Tape-eMag provides all of the advantages of full backup methodology, but using the extremely efficient mainframe environment
-eMag can recover tapes without the original VSM catalog or the need to rebuild the mainframe/virtual environment
-eMag also restores virtual tape without tying up massive production capabilities. To accomplish this in house, each Migration Tape would produce multiple RTVs, which require:
- Sequencing time
- A second restoration effort
- Many cartridges OR Large space on BlueArc
Restoration of Virtual Tape directly from Virtual Tape
