>WORD TO THE WISE......If you can avoid going to 3590Es, DO IT.  Development
>of 3590E support in ADSM is very recent, and while it may work, there have
>been a number of issues with them involving ADSM.

To keep this all in perspective...
ADSM is not to blame for the "VCR data" problem.  This is a hardware problem 
which
has nothing to do with ADSM: any application using the tape drives would run 
into it.
Any customer having the problem should be getting resolution throught their IBM 
CEs,
who should be working to resolve the problem at every site, and not just 
installing
the drives and saying "See ya".  IBM hardware support has historically been less
than impressive, with no proactive support to their customers for well-known 
problems
with the drive microcode: it's always the customer who has to run into the 
problem
in a production environment, call it in, and then try to convince the CE who 
claims
to have never heard of it that there is a problem and that it is hardware.
Second and more obvious: Be wary of anything new, not just 3590Es.  Anything new
in the field is getting its first real-world experiences, where all the design
and compatibility problems will be exposed.  Wariness is standard practice in 
the
computer industry.  You adopt new hardware or software only if you have no other
choice; else wait a while for those who had no choice to expose and remedy the
problems.
            Richard Sims, BU