I have been using a 3494 Library for some months now with 3490 drives and
more recently 3590 drives connected to an RS 6000.
I feel quite strongly that a step-by-step guide to installing the robot and
drives under AIX for use with ADSM is needed. There may well be information
in various places mentioned in the response by David Bohm, such as the new
Device Configuration manual and the README with ADSM but I would advocate
that it is inadequate.
My experiences of installing the 3494/3490/3590 would have been less painful if
the following information had been included and available in one place:
how to configure the tty device to control the 3494.
[I got this information from a good contact at the Rutherford Laboratory
which is just down the road, we compared characteristics by telephone.]
configuring the 3494 after installing the atldd driver is done using the
SMIT Devices Tape Drive path (not the ADSM Library/Medium Changer path as
one might try).
knowing that any installation of atldd driver wipes out your 3494 config
and that you must always be ready to put it back - and ADSM does not appear
to automatically recover from this situation; a restart is necessary even
though the connection is retried at regular intervals.
knowing that mixed media is only supported in the 3494 when the E/J suffix
is applied to the bar-code label; ok this is in the 3494 operator guide, but
having used the 3494 with only 3490s for 3 months without problem, this had
slipped past me. I had a frantic day phoning suppliers and obtaining 'E's
and adding them to hundreds of tapes in order to complete the 3590
installation and still be able to use the 3490s.
understanding better what David explained about scratch categories; I spent
a not inconsiderable time (with our very technically able IBM support person
here) trying to figure this out. We got there. The ENABLE3590 option is only
applicable when wanting to use 3590 scratch tapes; I had some 3490 scratch
tapes for database backup; to switch that to using 3590s required the new
parameter, an ADSM restart and checking in the 3590 scratch tapes.
The real point I am trying to make is that these systems are quite complex and
people are often under a great deal of pressure to get them installed and
working. We can and do read but we'd like a bit of help with more detailed
instructions pulled together.
Thanks for your time, regards,
Sheelagh Treweek Email: sheelagh.treweek AT oucs.ox.ac
DOT uk
Oxford University Computing Services Tel : +44 (0)1865 273205
13 Banbury Road, Oxford, UK. OX2 6NN Fax : +44 (0)1865 273275
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