Tape Drives as a Network Resource

[E. Scott Menter]

I have 3 GCR Cache tape drives sitting in a storage room, unused.  I also
have a host of servers (sounds nicer than a "bunch" of servers) in my
datacenter, tapeless (or at least, 1/2" tapeless).  "Gee," I say to
myself, "there ought to be some way of providing these GCRs as a network
resource."

Well, of course I could pop for a couple of Xylogics controllers and toss
them on the first available servers.  But, then I pay a price in cycles
and security (hosts.equiv access and all that).  I'd rather do something
more along the lines of a true network resource (like an Imagen laser
printer with an ethernet card).

Yes, I can work around this:  I have a couple of machines with small
busses (read: 4/110s) that I could probably sacrifice for this cause.  I'm
looking for a more interesting (and general) solution, though, if one
exists.

Thanks.  I'll summ.

Scott Menter, Manager, Workstation LAN Administration
Shearson Lehman Hutton
escott at shearson.com