ADSM-L

Re: Regarding 3494 lib and volume catagories

2005-02-25 05:16:25
Subject: Re: Regarding 3494 lib and volume catagories
From: Farren Minns <fminns AT WILEY.CO DOT UK>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:14:04 +0000
Thank you ever so much for the helpful advice.

All the best

Farren
|+------------------------------+-----------------------------------------|
||   "Prather, Wanda"           |                                         |
||   <Wanda.Prather AT JHUAPL DOT EDU> |                                        
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||   Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor  |   To:        ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU      
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||   Manager"                   |           cc:                           |
||   <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>     |           Subject:        Re: [ADSM-L] 
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||                              |   Regarding 3494 lib and volume         |
||   24/02/2005 19:56           |   catagories                            |
||   Please respond to "ADSM:   |                                         |
||   Dist Stor Manager"         |                                         |
|+------------------------------+-----------------------------------------|








1) First, make sure that the AS400 will be using a DIFFERENT VOLSER
RANGE than your TSM server.
I mean, a different range of barcode labels.  (If you don't want to buy
more tapes, you can always just by a new set of barcode labels, replace
some of your current ones, and do LABEL LIBV to reinitialize the tapes.
You'' spend about $100 on barcodes, but save yourself a LOT of grief.)

2) The best source of info about categories is the REDBOOK on the 3494,
Total Storage Handbook Practical Guide.
Go to www.redbooks.ibm.com, search on SG24-4632.
It's a huge book, but it has (or at least it used to) some good diagrams
of partitioning libraries.
You can IGNORE all the info about Z/OS and VTL.
Appendix C lists the Category Codes

3) From your TSM command line, enter Q LIBRARY *
It will show you the PRIVATE and SCRATCH categories your TSM server is
using now.
This was set up when someone did your original TSM config, with the
DEFINE LIBRARY command.
On my TSM server (which is WINDOWS, not SOLARIS, BTW), the categories
are 300 for Private, 302 for Scratch.
TSM and the 3494 do a handshake and assign this category to a tape when
you run a TSM CHECKIN command.

4) If you go to your 3494 Library Manager console and use the Database
-> Search function to display some tapes, you will see that your TSM
tapes are assigned these categories in the library manager (except they
are displayed in HEX).

If some other application (like the AS400) tries to mount one of these
tapes, the robot will refuse the mount.  That's what the categories are
for, to keep one application from stomping the other.

I don't speak AS400, but when you set it up to use the 3494, you should
be able to configure it to use ANY other private & scratch categories
other than what TSM is using.

5) THE TRICKY PART:

If you put tapes in through the I/O door, they are always assigned the
INSERT category (FF00) by the 3494.  They sit around waiting for some
application to claim them, and the first one to claim them wins.

What normally happens, we bring tapes back from our vault, stick them in
the door.  They go into INSERT category.  Once a day we run CHECKIN on
the TSM server to check them in as scratch.  TSM tells the 3494 it is
claiming them, and the tapes are all assigned the category 302 (12E).
Whenever TSM needs a scratch mount, the 3494 will pull the
least-recently-used tape in category 12E and mount it.
THE REASON IT WORKS WORKS is that we ALWAYS do the checkin with the
VOLRANGE parameter, telling TSM to CHECK IN only tapes with volsers
xxxxxx-yyyyyy.  OTHERwise, TSM would claim ANYTHING that is in the robot
in insert status, which would include tapes we returned from the vault
that actually belong to our Z/OS system.

I have NO IDEA how you would make it work, if you don't have separate
tape ranges for your TSM server and your AS/400.

Hope that helps.

Wanda Prather
"I/O, I/O, It's all about I/O"  -(me)



-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Farren Minns
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 8:56 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Regarding 3494 lib and volume catagories


Hi all

At the moment our IBM 3494 tape library with 2 internal 3590 H1A tape
drives is used by just one TSM server ( running Solaris 2.7 ). But, in
the
near future I am being asked to make it available for use by another
server
( BRMS running on an AS400 ). This is something I know very little
about,
but am aware that it has something to do with categories within the tape
library. So only one server will have access to category 'a' while
another
will access category 'b' for example ( at least I think it's as simple
as
that ). But I do not understand exactly where these categories are
defined
and how to tell TSM not to use volumes of category 'b' for example. I am
not worrying about the BRMS side of things as this will be dealt with by
another department.

Can anyone point me in the direction for some good resources on this and
indeed can anyone who already does this give me any advice.

Many thanks in advance

All the best

Farren Minns

John Wiley & Sons Ltd



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