In this paper we describe the design and implementation of the Tapr high performance tape streaming system. Tapr consists of a number of basic processes interacting though message passing on CSP-style communications channels. The system is highly concurrent, uses synchronous as well as asynchronous coordination without the need for complex usage of traditional locks. The system scales to and beyond contemporary enterprise so-called automated tape libraries by representing each and every part of the tape library as a communicating process. This includes the robot changer, each tape drive, all clients and even the loaded tape media.

We show how such an implementation can be done in the Go programming language with relative ease by utilizing the concurrency primitives included in the base language. We also describe how complex cancellation and timeout handling can be handled directly in the language by using the concept of a surrounding context.

Finally, we present a number of benchmarks designed to show that the communicating process architecture does not impose any measurable overhead, but rather allows the system to scale to a high number of clients and devices using a simple and intuitive process-based design.