If it is "Pending", it means that, even though the tape has no valid
contents for
your current production database could recover, you still have a valid
database
backup offsite that has not expired that does know what is on that tape, and
if
in a disaster situation you need to use that old database backup, it would
need
the tape that is currently "Pending".

Once it is shown as Free or Empty rather than Pending, you can re-use that
tape.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adamson, Matt [SMTP:matt.adamson AT ATTWS DOT COM]
> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 4:50 PM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Re: Reclaming offsite tapes
>
> Sorry if I sound a little ignorant.  I took our backup environment over a
> few months ago and have been trying to learn how it was set up.  It was
> explained to me that I could not get tapes back from offsite, just in case
> we need to do a Point in time restore with DRM. I have asked if we could
> bring tapes back that are in a Pending state and was told NO.  Example: If
> we pulled a DBSnap from lets say August 2001, it was explained to me that
> some of these tapes that are marked Pending now, As of August 2001 they
> could have data on them at that point in time.
> Am I missing something or am I to assume that I can pull these(Pending)
> tapes back.
>
> ={
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prather, Wanda [mailto:Wanda.Prather AT JHUAPL DOT EDU]
> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 11:34 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: Reclaming offsite tapes
>
>
> When you start reclaims on a COPY pool where the tapes are OFFSITE, TSM
> knows that the tapes aren't available (they are marked OFFSITE, yes?).  So
> TSM does the reclaim using only the ONSITE tapes.
>
> If you have 3 tapes offsite that are only 10% good, TSM will mount a
> scratch
> tape, find the onsite copies of all those files, and create a new tape in
> the OFFSITE tape pool that is 30% full.  Then it marks the OFFSITE tapes
> as
> EMPTY.  So you send the new tape offsite, and then you can bring the EMPTY
> tapes back on site and reuse them.
>
> We do it constantly.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adamson, Matt [mailto:matt.adamson AT ATTWS DOT COM]
> Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 2:17 PM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Reclaming offsite tapes
>
>
> Here is my scenario...
>
> We currently send all of our tapes offsite for 7 years.  In the library we
> collocate by filespace.  But, when we send the tapes offsite they are
> uncollocated.  We have retired a number of servers in the past couple
> years,
> meaning we no longer need that data.  Being that we send the tapes offsite
> Uncollocated, data from a retired server could be on the same tape of a
> server that we still have in production.  Is there a way for me find out
> if
> this is so?  Is there a way I can call the tapes back from offsite and
> perform some sort of reclamation?
>
> Any ideas would be great, but if I'm stuck I can deal with it.  Tape costs
> are making look into all different scenarios.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matt