DEFINE LIBRARY (Define a VTL library)

Privilege class

To issue this command, you must have system privilege or unrestricted storage privilege.

Parameters

library_name (Required)

Specifies the name of the library to be defined. The maximum length of this name is 30 characters.

LIBType=VTL (Required)

Specifies that the library has a SCSI-controlled media changer device that is represented by a virtual tape library. To mount volumes in drives in this type of library, Tivoli® Storage Manager uses the media changer device.

If you are defining a VTL library, your environment must not include any mixed-media and paths must be defined between all drives in the library and all defined servers, including storage agents, that use the library. If either of these characteristics are not true, the overall performance can degrade to the same levels as the SCSI library type; especially during times of high stress.

SHAREd

Specifies whether this library is shared with other Tivoli Storage Manager servers in a storage area network (SAN). This parameter is required when you define a library to the library manager.

YES

Specifies that this library can be shared with other servers. When you specify YES, the library manager server mounts volumes as requested by other servers and tracks drive and volume allocation to other servers.

NO

Specifies that this library cannot be shared with other servers. SHARED=NO is required if the library is controlled by passing commands through a NAS file server.

RESETDrives

Specifies whether the server preempts a drive reservation with persistent reserve when the server is restarted or when a library client or storage agent reconnection is established. If, for example, a storage agent becomes unavailable but is still holding the path to a drive, persistent reserve allows the server to break the storage agent’s reservation and access the drive.

If persistent reserve is not supported, the server completes a reset of the path to the target device.

If persistent reserve is not supported, the server is not able to reset the path to the target device.

Support for persistent reservation has the following limitations:

• If you are using the Tivoli Storage Manager device driver, persistent reserve is only supported on some tape drives. See Technote 1470319 for details.
• If you are using the IBM device driver, persistent reserve must be enabled at the device driver level. See the IBM Tape Device Drivers Installation and User's Guide for information about driver configuration.
• If you are using a virtual tape library that is emulating a supported drive, it might not support persistent reserve.

Yes

Specifies that drive preemption through persistent reserve or target reset are used. YES is the default for a library that is defined with SHARED=YES.

No

Specifies that drive preemption through persistent reserve or target reset are not used. NO is the default for a library that is defined with SHARED=NO. The RESETDRIVES parameter must be set to YES in a clustered environment when SHARED=NO.

Yes

Specifies that drive preemption through persistent reserve is used. YES is the default for a library that is defined with SHARED=YES.

No

Specifies that drive preemption through persistent reserve is not used. NO is the default for a library that is defined with SHARED=NO.

Note: A library manager will not be able to break a drive reservation if the system that has the drive reservation is not configured to use persistent reservation.

AUTOLabel

Specifies whether the server attempts to automatically label tape volumes. This parameter is optional. The default is NO.

To use this option, you must check in the tapes with CHECKLABEL=BARCODE on the CHECKIN LIBVOLUME command.

No

Specifies that the server does not attempt to label any volumes.

Yes

Specifies that the server labels only unlabeled volumes.

OVERWRITE

Specifies that the server attempts to overwrite an existing label. The server overwrites existing labels only if both the existing label and the bar code label are not already defined in any server storage pool or volume history list.

RELABELSCRatch

Specifies whether the server relabels volumes that were deleted and returned to scratch. When this parameter is set to YES, a LABEL LIBVOLUME operation is started and the existing volume label is overwritten.

Note: If you have both virtual and real volumes in your VTL, both types are relabeled when this parameter is enabled. If the VTL includes real volumes, specifying this option might impact performance.

Yes

Specifies that the server relabels volumes that are deleted and returned to scratch. YES is the default.

No

Specifies that the server does not relabel volumes that are deleted and returned to scratch.

SERial

Specifies the serial number for the library that is being defined. This parameter is optional. The default is AUTODETECT.

If SERIAL=AUTODETECT, then when you define the path to the library, the serial number reported by the library is used as the serial number.

If SERIAL=serial_number, then the number you entered is compared to the number detected by Tivoli Storage Manager.

Attention: Depending on the capabilities of the device, SERIAL=AUTODETECT might not be supported. In this case, the serial number is reported as blank.