One word of caution here: if you are running multiple ADSM
servers that are sharing a 3494 or some other automated tape
library you need to take great caution with this command.

The multiple servers know nothing about the other's tapes. So,
for example, if you put a load of tapes from serverA into the
library, then run a 'checkin libv 3494library search=yes
status=scratch' on serverB there will be no complaints from
serverB. As far as it's concerned those are blank tapes.

Yes, this would be the voice of experience. Thank goodness for
copy storage pools.

 -- Tom

Thomas A. La Porte
DreamWorks Animation
tlaporte AT dreamworks DOT com

On Fri, 10 Jul 1998, Prather, Wanda wrote:

>When you issue the CHECKIN command, you specify the LIBRARY name, and
>specify STATUS=SCRATCH.
>
>That tells ADSM to put the tapes back in the available set of SCRATCH tapes
>for that LIBRARY.
>
>If you accidentally try to check in one that still has data, it will still
>have an entry of some kind in the ADSM storage pool vol list, and the
>CHECKIN for SCRATCH will fail.  You get an error message that says something
>like "VOL YYYYYY CANNOT BE ASSIGNED A STATUS OF SCRATCH".
>
>
>===============================================================
>Wanda Prather
>Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
>443-778-8769
>wanda_prather AT jhuapl DOT edu
>
>"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think."
>              - Scott Adams/Dilbert
>===============================================================
>
>
>
>> ----------
>> From:         Carl Makin[SMTP:Carl.Makin AT ipaustralia.gov DOT au]
>> Sent:         Thursday, July 09, 1998 11:46 PM
>> To:   ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu
>> Subject:      Offsite, Automated libraries, and reclamation.
>>
>> I'm in the process of automating offsite storage of the copypool and
>> database backups.
>>
>> I can't find any description of what ADSM will do when I check the tapes
>> back into the library.
>>
>> Currently it works like this;
>>
>> I have a perl script that interrogates ADSM and generates a list of tapes
>> to go offsite.  These include both the copypool tapes and the ADSM
>> database
>> backups.  The script then ejects each tape from our 9714 library and
>> updates a DBM hash file which keeps track of tapes that are offsite.
>>
>> When the tapes are reclaimed, or the database backups expire (volhistory
>> deleted), they vanish from the ADSM database.  I detect this by comparing
>> the offsite tape list (DBM hash) against the active adsm tape list.  If
>> they don't appear in the active adsm list then I bring them back from
>> offsite.
>>
>> What I'm not sure about is how do I check them back in to the library.
>> The
>> documentation seems to indicate that I can just check them ALL back in as
>> "scratch" and any that (by some chance) still have valid data, ie still in
>> the ADSM database, will be automagically changed to "data".  Is this
>> correct?
>>
>> How are other people handling offsite backups with an automated library?
>>
>>
>> BTW, one of the reasons I'm doing this, instead of using DRM, is the poor
>> support ADSM has for getting multiple tapes out of the 9714 one at a time.
>> The 9714 cartridge access port can only handle 1 tape at a time.  I didn't
>> feel all that happy about having operators fish around inside the unit to
>> remove tapes directly from their slots, nor did I like the large amount of
>> typing required to remove cartridges one at a time.
>>
>>
>> Carl.
>>
>