Mary,
        Yes, I would like details of how you do this.  We are about to go to an
MVS system.  However we are now using a CA product called DYNAM.   VM is
a little different than MVS in how it handles tapes, but we could use
the same method you use with a little modification.  How long did it
take to implement this process and how much is automated?  Could you
tell me how large of an operation you have.  Thank you for taking the
time to reply to my question.  Anything you can tell me will help.

                                        Dave Larimer
                                        Dave_Larimer AT kne DOT com


>----------
>From:  Mary Vollmer[SMTP:Mary_Vollmer AT MGIC DOT COM]
>Sent:  Friday, February 14, 1997 8:23 AM
>To:    ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>Subject:       Re: Offsite rotation of tapes...
>
>Dave,
>
>We do weekly offsite rotation, mainly because there isn't enough time each
>day
>to copy the previous night's data.  We use collocation by node and have about
>120 nodes.  We do not use the storage pool copy  function of ADSM for 2
>reasons, 1) it is recommended that the copy storage pool NOT be collocated -
>I
>couldn't imagine how long restores would take in a disaster recovery
>situation
>if we did not use collocation.  We are using MVS as the server and get only
>about .5 GB per tape so there are ALOT of tapes.  2)  If we did collocate the
>copy storage pool, there would be way too much tape reclamation processing to
>do to keep the pool at a reasonable size.
>
>We have implemented our own method of creating tapes for disaster recovery.
>We
>have  tape collocation turned on by node.  Day 1 of the week is Sunday night.
>On that night we start a new tape for each node by marking all tapes in the
>pool read-only on Sunday morning.  We run the incremental backups each night
>for the rest of the week.  Our server is MVS and we use CA1 as our tape
>management system.  Using CA1, we are able to find all the tapes that were
>created by ADSM since the last 'cut off' (Sunday morning).  We then use MVS
>DITTO to copy these tapes.  The internal tape label of the primary and
>disaster
>recovery tapes are identical but the external label of the disaster recovery
>tapes has a different 1st number.  The rotation of these tapes is handled by
>CA1 by manually (via program, of course) setting vault codes, etc.  In our
>disaster tests, when ADSM calls for a 5xxxxx tape, we mount the 6xxxxx copy
>of
>that tape.  Because the internal label is 5xxxxx, it works just fine.
>Tuesday-Friday we select tapes from ADSM with utilization (not % reclamable)
>of
>15% or less and stack that data (using move data commands) on to that week's
>active tape for that node in an attempt to consolidate the data on the fewest
>possible tapes.  If you would like more detailed information about this
>process, I would be happy to share it.
>