STK Forum 2004, San AntonioTexas

11-13 October 2004

This was as always split into two parts: the Large Tape Users Group (~150 attendees), Monday 11th, and the general meeting (~900 attendees and ~150 STK staff/partners) on 12-13 October. Presentations ought shortly to be available either on the LTUG/FORUM websites or on CD.

LTUG:

It is notable that of ~150 persons here, only 10-20 are even vaguely ‘open systems’. Big iron IBM/MVS is very alive and it drives the product sets. We live on the crumbs, really.

To note:

J.Benson/STK/VP Automated Tape Solutions

  1. ‘World interoperability lab’ now in Toulouse (where, incidentally, our 9940Bs now seem to pass for 1st line maintenance/rework).
  2. About 60 SL8500s (new large library, Powderhorn replacement) shipped. Producing about 12 per week, 2-3 month backlog.
  3. SL500 ‘new generation small library’ now available and was on show. This will be LTO/SDLT/STK compatible, 19 inch rack format, 2-18 drives or 30-500 cartridges (more of one, less of the other).
  4. New drive mentioned quite often (this was not a non-disclosure meeting).
  5. Personnel in Automated Tape Solutions now ~100: 13 mechanical engineering, 17 in ASICSs, 12 in R/W channel, 12 in servo systems, 19 in ‘s/w’, 13 in test and validation and 17 in system integration.

James Cates/STK/Director Tape Drive Development

  1. GMR heads for ‘2009’.
  2. VOLSER will be visible in ‘sense pages’ and data recovery beyond EOD mentioned for MVS (DFHSM). I have a contact about microcode for this (K.Pyatt/STK, )and we might see a possibility here (i.e. recover data lost because of mistaken prelabel).
  3. They still aim at ‘6 sigma’ and better maturity at launch, higher field reliability… One problem noted was vibration problems for the tape path stability: why no interest in our ‘shrieking tapes’ with massive vibration at 4 KHz?
  4. Admitted that nobody (or almost nobody) sees the basic ‘block error rates’, recovered or not.
  5. Still finding that ~40% of defective drives returned to STK are not in fact defective. We have heard this before, and they acknowledge this costs a lost of money (to STK) and causes a lot of nuisance (to customers). Probably used to gain support for the new diagnostic and maintenance tools mentioned later..

G.Fitzpatrick/STK/Director ATS development

  1. SL8500 enhancements include the 1-2 ‘tallbot’ option to add to 4-8 ‘handbot’ offering, and 1-32 pass-throughs in an assembly of SL8500s, delivery 1-2Q 2005. Capacity of an SL8500 was increased, 1500-10000 slots.
  2. PTP was 2 cartridge capacity, 1-4 per library element, ~8s pass-through time.
  3. An FC control attach option, SLDT fibre drive support.
  4. SL500 is now STK drive and LTO, SDLT to come. Smallest option is 2 drives and 30 slots.
  5. L700 not finished, becomes L1400 200-690 slots and integrated administration…

D.Trachy/STK/Software Engineering Manager

  1. Large investments in s/w (50-60 M$/yr).
  2. Mainframe and open systems testing both in Louisville and Toulouse.
  3. Purchase of Storability: GSM (General Storage Manager 4.0) will evolve from a ‘monitoring tool’ to a ‘management tool’, clearly to be integrated into the SL500/8500, Titanium, Indigo, VSM and VSM Open products…
  4. The Powderhorn/9310 will benefit from some of this, but not all of it. Too old. Shipping of ‘new’ 9310 will stop ~March 2005 (but not refurbished ones).
  5. Soundings about a 9840D (~70 GB capacity, same media?)…..

R.Kennedy/STK/Director of Software Development, ‘STK VSM Open’

  1. Appears to be equivalent to the CASTOR ‘tape layer’….
  2. Policy driven. Definitions straightforward…
  3. Multiple copies, remote vaulting, etc… No ‘host’ load to do this.
  4. Will merge with the MVS targeted version…
  5. Uses the ‘Common Platform’ under development… this is part of ‘Indigo’…
  6. 1-12 ‘node pairs’, each 2 x 2 Gbit attached to outside
  7. Node pair has redundant 2 x 2 Gbit to ATA/SATA RAID disk, capable of ~600 Mbytes/s I/O, and 1-4 real drives.
  8. Indigo/VSM Open looks like a set of virtual tape libraries (anything STK offers now) and each with a set of virtual tape drives (anything STK offers now).
  9. Supports a ‘native tape format’ (i.e. 3480 ‘SL’) which many old applications require. Otherwise, a more efficient internal format (each virtual tape is a labeled file, but maybe not every single file).
  10. RAIT being looked at.
  11. Server pair(s) use minimalist Linux. Tape driver might be ‘extractable’ for open sites not wanting the whole orchestra….
  12. Encrypted packets, jumbo packets, Kerberos authentication, ACLs under consideration…

Is this (Indigo or VSM Open) a good way to make use of NGD easier? Define (many) lower performance virtual libraries/drives that our (very many) disk servers can use?

Jay Nakagawa/STK/Product Marketing Manager, ‘ACSLS requirements from Spring LTUG’

  1. Command line interface and GUI require….
  2. Monitoring of drives, media, libraries…. Many, many items.

Not clear if ‘accepted’ or refused.

A new Backup Resources Manager will offer to fold in all normal ‘consoles’.

For queries, they offered to accept email:

SLM (Streamline Library Manager, ACSLS successor)

ACSLS

BRM

Design of the ‘new version’ of ACSLS closes in ~5 weeks, little time for coherent feedback!

S.Wendt/STK/Director of Global Services, ‘SDP, the Service Delivery Platform’

More (again) on re-organisation. However:

At last a possibly pro-active or predictive maintenance and diagnostic tool. Dial home, Linux VPN, offering better remote diagnostics. MVS sites seemed to have security issues, do we? 22 sites in US so far, hope for ~100. I indicated strong interest to try this. A plus is that distinguishing drive/media errors is an aim… A suivre with J-C.Brahier….

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Option to see how signed-up sites compare, even anonymously (are we worse/better?) inquired about….

FORUM:

Well organized and interesting. Most, if not all, of STK’s partners were there and able to answer questions about their products in our context.

Presentations of general interest, less well focused on our definitely minority problems. However, sitting in these and being clearly about to ask questions keeps the STK representatives on their toes, and they are really quite ready to answer questions and are quite open with helpful information at or just below NDA level.

Points raised from CERN viewpoint:

The sled and display need to be removed from drives such as 9840 or 9940 which are moved to an SL8500. Not very clear after this how you know what is going on… Is this why so much effort goes into the Streamline Library Manager and Global Resource Manager?

IBM’s 3592 and the Powderhorn or SL8500: still not supported. Imation had no 3592 media on show. Is this related to STK’s understandable lack of enthusiasm for integrating this competing drive into the SL8500? Imation did have an LTO 3 cartridge shell, however, and expect it to be on the market ‘soon’…

Extracting the STK Linux tape driver from the ‘common platform’. Several open sites expressed interest; it may be possible. What driver could be better?

Accessing data past a flagged ‘EOD’ (i.e. a mistaken prelabel, or a last file written in the wrong place (not an append). Seems to be offered in some sense for MVS sites, and I have had a reply from STK since returning. Some modified drive microcode might offer such a recovery possibility….

Difficulty rewriting media at a higher density, or reading low density with the higher density drive… We saw a lot of this for read (~1%?) during the 60-200 GC migration, as well as the ‘Invalid MIR outbreak’. Seems to be ‘more or less cured’ for 9940A-B transition, and no report of problems for 9940A-C migration (which we are considering).

Problems with cleanliness: yes, it is a problem, but libraries are still not in any way ‘self cleaning’ and ours are filthy (out fault).

Our ‘shrieking cartridges’ which give out a lot of noise at a steady 4 KHz when locating or rewinding: Imation was very interested (Thomas Northfield), and I will send him a (once data copied off) sample. He agreed it was likely to be a symptom of future problems!

Remote camera surveillance and recording: our current solutions are not too good. DVTEL (S.Grein) seemed to have a much better integrated system, capable of relaying b/w, colour, and silo camera images via Ethernet TCP/IP devices (i.e. from the postulated Prevessin remote vault).

Staff turnover in the Customer Services area seems to be rather rapid (few people you met at the last meeting turn up next year). Nobody appeared to believe (customers) that there is any systematic use of the drive dumps, remote diagnostics options or the 9940B TCP-IP port. Poor feedback about problems with drives and media was widespread. Perhaps the Service Delivery Platform will improve this?

GRM Global Storage Manager from STK’s new Storability acquisition: this looks like a targeted LEMON equivalent for tape libraries (especially SL8500, SL500 and perhaps L700), tape drives and perhaps even media. Disk subsystems are also included (presumably STK’s own will be best supported). This looks as though it will be integrated into the SLM ‘Streamline Library Manager’ and of course VSM, VSM Open and Indigo. Its probable tight integration with STK’s products make it extremely interesting. A suivre with J-C.Brahier….

CSC 21 October 2004