changing number of I/O slots on a TS3310

[sammiam]

Good Morning...

I've inherited a TSM system, using an IBM TS3310, with only 6 I/O slots (the main control unit) set up as the I/O drawer. We're running into situations where many times, more than 6 slots are required for checkin/checkout of tapes, so I am aware that I can change the configuration of the TS3310 to have 12 I/O slots.. I see where the change can be made, however, I don't want to touch a thing until I know what will happen when I press the 'accept' button.... We have 4 additional expansion units for the TS3310, so if I choose 12, will it ask me which "12" slot unit I want to use as the new I/O drawer??? Also, what about any existing tapes that are currently in the unit, will the library automatically move them, and will TSM be aware of what's going on? Sorry to be such a newbie, but with TSM and the TS3310, that's pretty much exactly what I am...

Thanks in advance for any advise...

Samm

 

[moon-buddy]

Question:

Is the existing 6 I/O slot function as the loading/unloading door?

If it is, I just suggest leaving the way it is, and you have to make the extra effort of unloading tapes more than once per tape cycle ejection.

 

[sammiam]

Hi & thanks for the quick reply..... yes, the current 6 slots are the main controller's I/O slots... here's what I'm fighting... We really don't have an operations staff, and on the week-ends, the 6 slots fill up, and cause TSM to totally hang, waiting for empty slots... Management doesn't want to hear anythin about having to have staff go in and empty I/O slots, as we don't have any operations staff at all....... I'm pretty much screwed on the week.ends.... my thinking is that if I can use one of the 12 slot drawers, that would hold me over for the week-end, and get management off of my back... any thoughts would be appreciated on this....

 

[moon-buddy]

OK, you can do this - use slots as addtional I/O - but bear in mind that you will loose library slots. This would not be of a big deal if you have lots of slots for future needs. However, if you have just a few, then you may want to seek another alternative.

But here is the issue:

It looks like you don't have staff to unload the tapes from the I/O on weekends. Then why move the tapes to I/O on weekends? Why can't you just move all of the tapes that were set to mountable on Monday when there are people to look after the removal of tapes from the I/O slots?

 

[sammiam]

Good thought.... however, here's the elephant in the room... the staff we do have does go into the computer room, only ONCE a day.... they open the I/O draw, pull out the 6 tapes that are ready to be sent offsite, put them into the containers to go offsite, they then load up the 6 slots with the scratch tapes, close the drawer, tell the TS3310 which library the tapes are assigned to, and that's it...... meanwhile, the DRM process is in reality wanting to load more tapes into the I/O slot that needed to go offsite with the first 6 tapes that were taken... unfortunately, the staff hasn't a clue as to what's going on, management puts the burden on us to come up with a solution....

Given the above.... so you say to add 12 more slots... are you saying to keep the 6, and add 12 more? we do have enough slots open to do this if necessary, but if I add 12, that would give us 18 I/O slots... I'd really like to only have a total of 12... Is that possible.... not being all that famaliar with the TS3310... when I tell it 12 I/O slots... and since I have 3 additional expansion units.. will it then ask me which unit I want to be the new I/O slot drawer? What about existing tapes that are already in the new I/O drawer... will the library automatically move them, or is that something I have to manually do? I would assume that TSM would also need to have a audit performed also????

Agan, thanks for your patience on this....

 

[moon-buddy]

What is the estimated number of tapes to be ejected on Saturday and Sunday? If the total is less than 12, you only need to add 6 slots.

But here is the thought, when the tapes get ejected, TSM can wait for a predetermind period until someone pulls out the first 6 and TSM unloads the next tapes (up to 6). If the wait time had elapsed, TSM simply stops the export. TSM can also wait almost indefinitely until someone unloads the I/O slot.

Why not ask the persion to wait for the next batch? Or, send a message advising how many tapes to expect. This way, you avoided loosing precious tape slots.

 

[sammiam]

Ya... I've explored this, but unfortunately because of politics... (ya gotta love 'em)... the person who takes out the tapes won't wait, won't check any type of notification to let them know that there are more tapes coming out.and I cannot get upper support on this.. the number of tape is usually 10-12 per day... we're using LT04 tapes, and there's no $$$$ to look at going with higher density tapes (so much for working for a non-profit org.... ;-D )... I can't really have TSM wait because the processes start stacking up, and eventually TSM just screeches to a halt, with multiple DRM's waiting for open slots..... I'm going to have to at a minimum expore the possibility of using one of my 12 slot expansion units for the drawer.. I assume that just addint 6 to the additional 6 to me does not make sense, as far as if the current 6 in the control unit are used for I/O slots, and I add 6 more... that would put me using 6 additional slots in one of the 12 slot drawers.... am I understanding this correctly? Again, forgive me as this is my first experience with this type of library... What I'd really like as a result of this would be for the current 6 to become part of the library, and the 12 be one of the expansion unit drawers (we have 3) so in essence, I'd simply be moving my I/O slots to be one of my expansion units, with the 6 in the control unit becoming part of the library....

 

[moon-buddy]

Even if you add the addtional I/O slots, you will still need to do extra work to get the tapes out as the next set of I/O slots is not part of the I/O door. This generally means opening the library door, or moving the tapes fom the next 6 to the first 6.

This is why I am hesitant to go with this idea.

I was faced with this issue before - no one, or someone only willing to do just limited work with tapes - on weekends. What I did was to move just the right number of tapes to meet the total capacity of the I/O slot. This means that some 'mountable' tapes will remain in the library for the weekend, and can only be sent offsite on the following Monday. A risk but what can you do? The persons on the weekend would not want to do the extra work/effort.

If you want to add the extra I/O slots just remember to test on how the tapes can be retrieved.

 

[esiole]

Hi guys

Are you speaking about I/O Slot or Virtual I/O slot (meaning ALMS optin active) ?

This in any case won't change the physical I/O slot of the library unless you do a hardware upgrade of the library and then won't answer your need.

The basic I/O for this library is 6 and can be extended to 54 with 4 extensions. If you already have this extension, then you can just accept and upgrade your number of I/O slot

AS per IBM : Base model L5B: 35 storage and six I/O. Expansion module, model E9U: 92 storage or 80 storage and 12 I/O
<== So consider loosing slot for Data tape if extended number of I/O (and keep in mind in case of need, it can be revert back from I/O to data slot).

Regards
Esiole