Hi Charles, 

You are right, ALMS is required for LTO5 drives but not enhanced node cards; 
see 
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/1/877/ENUSZG10-0101/ENUSZG10-0101.PDF  
under 'TS3500 Features and Functions'.  You only need enhanced node cards to go 
to higher firmware levels.  We are positioning ourselves for LTO5 drives 
(currently have 10 LTO4's in an IBM 3584 lib) and have already learned some 
hard lessons.  

We turned on ALMS, then took the lib from 7420 code to 8430 (the highest level 
without enhanced node cards) and also took the LTO4 drive code to the most 
current level in that order, in one outage.  Enormous mistake, we're still 
battling a crippled library (it has somehow 'lost' at least 35 volumes 
inside...may still be a hardware issue, we've been having lots of robot/gripper 
problems; also if I go to any higher lib firmware, it loses all the drives, so 
I keep one drive at an ancient code level until this is resolved).

What we should probably have done was to boost the lib firmware to 7422 and 
take a brief outage for that, then apply ALMS and let it settle in for a few 
days (as you know ALMS switches the lib from 'slot-centric' to 'cart-centric'); 
you can run 7422 and ALMS fine...then later upgrade the drive and lib firmware. 
 FWIW, I'm told 8400 lib code is troublesome, 8430 is a better level.  If you 
look at the firmware levels in Fix Central, you will see 3 categories:   
firmware for machines with ALMS and enhanced node cards, machines with ALMS and 
standard node cards, and machines without ALMS; 8430 is as far as we can go 
without enhanced node cards.  

I think we erred in turning on ALMS before the code update and not giving it 
time to settle in; the result was a 2-day outage and a really screwed up 
library that pretty much works but not well AND now we can't seem to go to any 
higher code level without losing access to all (but one) of the drives.  

Hope that helps,
Susie



-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM-L automatic digest system [mailto:LISTSERV AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 12:03 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: ADSM-L Digest - 28 Aug 2011 to 30 Aug 2011 (#2011-209)

There is 1 message totalling 24 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. NPPD -- IBM LTO5 Tape Drive question

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:46:29 -0500
From:    "Lamb, Charles P." <cplamb AT NPPD DOT COM>
Subject: NPPD -- IBM LTO5 Tape Drive question

Hi...........

Has anyone been using IBM LTO5 tape drives in an IBM 3584-L32/D32s Tape Lib=
rary configuration which has fourteen IBM LTO4 tape drives??  We presently =
use new IBM LTO4 tape drives for replacements, however, new IBM LTO4 tape d=
rives will be hard to find in the future.  We started to look into new IBM =
LTO5 tape drives as replacements, however, ALMS and enhance node card must =
be installed, we think into our IBM 3584-L32/D32s Tape Library.

Does anyone have more information about what is needed so an IBM 3584-L32/D=
32 firmware V7422 configuration can be change to support new IBM LTO5 tape =
drives??

Tnx's a bunch...............

------------------------------

End of ADSM-L Digest - 28 Aug 2011 to 30 Aug 2011 (#2011-209)
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