On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Sharp, Chris wrote:
> We have had this situation and you will have to pay for the Micro code even
> if you have a maintenance agreement!!! If anyone has found any different I
> would be Very interested to hear.....

Yes, I have heard this too.  The 3590-B1A's also have a charge to make
them XL-tape capable.  Do older 3590-E1A's also have a charge?  New
3590-E1A's will include the support.  I would guess that new 3570's would
also include it, otherwise IBM would have to split the microcode service
stream into non-XL and XL capable code, making maintenance a nightmare.
Therefore, I would guess that if one were to sit tight, they would
eventually wind up with XL-capable hardware for free.  Otherwise, at some
point, your CE would hand you a bill for the PM he just pulled on your
3575/3570's, which is on maintenance.

I participated in the Beta for the 3570-XL support, so did not have to pay
for the upgrades.

> > Does anyone know exactly what is involved in this upgrade and how one
> could estimate installation time?
>
> If I recall, it involves at least 41A of the drive microcode (I am running
> 424), and 2.19 of the library eprom (3575-L12/3575-L18).  I think it takes
> the CE about 20-30 minutes to pop off the old chip, and pop on the new
> one.  If you have 3570-C02/C12's (2 drives, 20 tapes), then I think it
> only requires the drive microcode.
>
> Steve Roder, University at Buffalo

Steve Roder, University at Buffalo
VM Systems Programmer
UNIX Systems Administrator (Solaris and AIX)
ADSM Administrator
(tkssteve AT buffalo DOT edu | (716)645-3564 | 
http://ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu/~tkssteve)