commvault.com commvault.com
Question

Sharing a Tape Library in MSP Configuration

  • 12 February 2024
  • 4 replies
  • 25 views
A
Rank
Badge +6

Hello,

 

Working on a design for a customer that will provide BaaS using Commvault as an MSP.

HSX will be used as primary backup target and they want to provide tape copy option to their tenants.

They have a Tape library with 12 drives and 240 slots and expecting 6 tenants.

 

Some tenant will self-manage their backup and some will be fully managed by the MSP.

 

I am wondering how we can make a portion of the tape library available to the tenant (storage pool / drive pool ?) and have access only to its set of tapes, drives and slots.

 

Customer does not have license to partition the tape library.

TL drives will be connected to the HSX.

 

Thanks for any inputs

4 replies

C
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +14

Hello @Abdellatif AITELBACHA 

You would need to setup separate drive pools and scratch pools so that your desired tape copy only uses certain drive(s) and tapes.

Configuring a Drive Pool - https://documentation.commvault.com/2023e/expert/configuring_drive_pool.html

Scratch Pools - Configuration - https://documentation.commvault.com/2023e/expert/scratch_pools_configuration.html

 

Thank you,
Collin

A
Rank
Badge +6

Hi Collin,

Thanks for your reply.

Not very familiar with the concept of drive pools and scratch pools so I will read the link you shared.

Does a storage pool of tape type also linked to the drive pool and scratch pool ?

Do I need to ask the customer to use separate barcode (with different first 2 digits) so tapes can be allocated to a scratch pool automatically or each time a tape is first used it will be assigned to a scratch pool based on the storage pool in belongs ?

Thanks

A
Rank
Badge +4

@Abdellatif AITELBACHA As Colling mentioned, you can use separate scratch pools and assign different media to those scratch pools. Assuming different tenants will use different storage policy / copy, you can then set those scratch pools in the datapath configuration so that always the media is picked from that scratch pool only. Once the data on the media ages / prunes, those tapes will be returned to their own scratch pools.

More info

https://documentation.commvault.com/2023e/expert/scratch_pools.html

 

A
Rank
Badge +6

Thanks gents for you replies.

I have tested this on my lab using the Virtual Tape tool to simulate a tape library.

Although we can manage tapes and drives using master pool and drive pool, use barcode patterns etc.

The issue is that we cannot provide the tape management to a tenant that has a self service model where they can configure their own copy to tape policies.

The permissions on Commvault for the Tape Libraries are at the Library level and cannot be assigned to a Drive pool level. So on a Tenant context on Command Center, a tenant can see all media within the library even if the storage pool was configured using its dedicated Scratch pool.

The Library Operation or Administration permission is given at the Library level and not any sub-entities within it so that violates the MSP tenant isolation.

If we give the tenant permissions to manage the storage on the Server Plan, they can also manage the primary copy on HSX which we want to avoid.

I guess I am left with no option that asking the customer to purchase a license to Partition the Tape Library so we can have each tenant having its own partition (2 drives and 40 slots). They will only be able to see the tapes that belong to the Tape Library partition we assigned to them.

 

Unless I am missing something :-)

Thanks

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings