My $0.02. I guess if you are doing a whole bunch of LAN Free stuff or NDMP backups it can be nice since you can just define the drives as you need them and not worry too much about drive contention (the throughput requirements for such a large LAN Free environment would make me skeptical about using a VTL though). Other than that I can't think of any really compelling reason to do it. Put it this way, we were offered a VTL with about 35TB of disk from one of the big storage vendors "free", and turned it down. After doing some research, it just didn't seem to fit in our environment. There wasn't a lot it did, I couldn't do with TSM and a bunch of disk.
Oh, not sure how much of a benefit this is, but they do claim 3:1 compression, something a TSM disk or file device won't do itself. If client side compression isn't an option for you that may be one upside of these systems. Curtis David E Ehresman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/29/2004 02:42 PM Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc Subject Re: size of active vs. inactive? >>It has also been discussed several times that TSM doesn't appear to be a good fit for a VTL. May want to search the archives to find out more on the subject.<< Has anyone heard of good experiences with TSM on a virtual tape library? Can this ever be a good thing?