Tape library to virtual machine

[skpatel13]

Dear Team,

 

I want to make VM which holds the backup role but I am not aware to connect FC tape library to this VM.

 

please help

[Davoud Teimouri]

You have to Pass-Thru FC ports to VM and then VM will work with tape library.

[acpzehetal]

As an addition to the former post the FC port has to been seen directly from the VM and you have to configure a direct passthrough of the FC port to the tape library. For the VM is to look like it is a direct attached device.

In the Vmware KB there is a common description how to do it:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1010789

The discription is very old, but it is working up to VSphere 7

[RimvydukasLT]

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 wrote:

You have to Pass-Thru FC ports to VM and then VM will work with tape library.

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I was struggling with the same thing as I wanted to connect tape library to my VM. I've tried NPIV functionality at first, but was not able to achieve anything. So I want to clarify - is the pass thru option only one available way to achieve this task? I did the similar thing only with Hyper-V in the past and it had "Vvirtual fibre channel" option which let me to achieve the same thing without using pass thru. Must I understand that vsphere does not have equal functionality?

[Scott Vessey]

This post might help: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/ESXi-Discussions/Adding-IBM-LTO-on-ESXI-6/m-p/2916678

[BarryGrowler]

To connect a FC tape library to a VM, you'll need to use Direct Path I/O to pass through the FC ports directly to the VM. This makes the tape library appear as if it's directly attached to the VM. VMware's documentation provides a guide on setting up pass-through devices, which is applicable up to vSphere 7.

While some might consider NPIV, pass-through is the more straightforward and commonly successful approach for this task.