-----Zoltan Forray wrote: -----

>We are starting to examine the idea of replacing our aging 3494
>(installed
>1995) due to difficulty in getting parts and having more frequent
>outages
>due to robot issues.
>
>Since we have 17-TS1130 drives, the natural transition would be to a
>TS3500/3584.
>
>If we go down this route, one issue might be the
>floorspace/placement,
> which might require a weekend eject-push-pull-reload.
>
>Never having dealt with any tape library other than the 3494, I am
>trying
>to collect as much info as I can on doing a swap-out.
>
>Is it as simple as defining the new library, moving the drives/paths
>to it,
> changing the devclass to point to the new library, checkin
>everything
>(scratch/private)??  Am I missing anything?

TS3500 libraries are often equipped with a sort of virtualization
facility, called ALMS, that allows setting up one or more logical
libraries within a physical TS3500. If you end up with this facility
installed, you will have to deal with a two-tier checkin process:
getting volumes into the right logical library, and then getting
them recognized by TSM. I think you can configure the library so
that it associates volume number ranges with specific logical
libraries and automatically puts newly inserted volumes into the
appropriate logical libraries.

If you use the tape drive encryption capabilities, you will need
to use the TS3500 management interface to enable encryption. My
experience with TS3500s and encryption involves application
managed encryption. I don't know whether there are any additional
complications if you use library managed encryption or system
managed encryption.

Thomas Denier
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital