dCache integration with CERN Tape Archive

Abstract

The ever-increasing amount of data that is produced by modern scientific facilities like EuXFEL or LHC puts high pressure on the data management infrastructure at the laboratories. This includes poorly shareable resources of archival storage, typically, tape libraries. To achieve maximal efficiency of the available tape resources, a deep integration between hardware and software components is required. The CERN Tape Archive (CTA) is an open-source storage management system developed by CERN to manage LHC experiment data on tape. Although today CTA’s primary target is CERN Tier-0, the data management group at DESY considers the CTA as a main alternative to commercial HSM systems. dCache has an extensible tape interface that allows connectivity to almost any tape system. Together with the CERN Tape Archive developers, the storage team at DESY is working on seamless integration of CTA into dCache.