| Asset ID: |
1-79-2148199.1 |
| Update Date: | 2017-09-12 |
| Keywords: | |
Solution Type
Predictive Self-Healing Sure
Solution
2148199.1
:
Tape -Automatic Link Partition (ALP), User Specification
| Related Items |
- Sun StorageTek 9840 Tape Drive
- Sun StorageTek T10000 Tape Drive
|
| Related Categories |
- PLA-Support>Sun Systems>TAPE>Tape Hardware>SN-TP: STK T-Series Drive
|
In this Document
Applies to:
Sun StorageTek T10000 Tape Drive - Version All Versions and later
Sun StorageTek 9840 Tape Drive - Version Not Applicable and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.
Purpose
Automatic Link Partition (ALP), User Specification
Scope
Overview
Today, tapes hold hundreds to thousands of gigabytes of data. Typically, the data is “stacked” on the media as different data sets and each data set has different expirations. When the expiration occurs, there is wasted space on the tape. Over time the wasted space becomes large enough where customers must reclaim the tape, which can consume many hours. In order to save our customers time and money, a method to capture the wasted space had to be created, hence Automatically Linked Partitioning (ALP).
The tape drive created a hard disk like format such that more of the tape can be used. Tape partitioning (Non Linked) has existed for many years, however many of today's tape drives don't implement them because developers didn't think they were useful. This implementation goes beyond partitions and creates automatically linked partitions where the data can span across ALPs and be non-contiguous on tape. Furthermore the tape drive handles much of this formatting without host intervention.
Details
Refer to this link for the complete document:
https://tapesupport.us.oracle.com/Includes/Dokuwiki/dokuwiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=start:sdu:e25415_01_alp_user_spec.pdf
Contents
1. Overview
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2. New Host Interface Commands
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2.1 Locate ALP
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2.2 Set/Clear ALP Mode
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2.3 Set Writable ALPs
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2.4 Report ALP Mode
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2.5 Report Current ALP
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2.6 Report ALP Linkage
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2.7 Start
New Logical Volume
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2.8 Set ALP Locks
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2.9 Get ALP Locks
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3. ALP Examples
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3.1 ALP Example to Save Space
................................................................................................................
3.2
ALP Example to Improve Access
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4. Drive Operation
.....................................................................................................................................
4.1 Logical Volume
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4.2 Partial Logical Volume
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4.3 Writing
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4.4 Reading
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4.5 Spacing and Locating
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5. ALP Layout
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6. ALP Capacity
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7. Potential ALP Benefits and Effects
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7.1 Increased Access Times
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7.2 More Efficient Use of Tape Capacity
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8. Theory of Operation
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8.1 Initializing an ALP Tape
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8.2 Loading an ALP Tape
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8.3 Positioning to a Host File
...................................................................................................................
8.4 Reading a Host File
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8.5 Appending a Host File
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8.6 Writing a Host File to a free ALP
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