Hello Geoffrey,

If you purchase a feature call ALMS for the 3584 you get something called VIO, 
Virtual i/o station.
With this feature as the operator puts carts into the i/o station the library 
moves the carts two at a time into slots in the library. It assigns the tape 
carts to the virtual libraries based on bar code prefix rules.
This is up to 255 carts per virtual library. Or at least my reading of the doc 
says up to 255 per virtual library. I have not tested to make sure that it is 
255 per virtual library and not the sum for all virtual libraries. The 
application when it asks for the tapes from the i/o station the tapes are moved 
from the virtual i/o station to the virtual library. This is only a paper 
transaction as the tape are already in slots, unless the count exceed the max 
carts in the vio. Then the real i/o station gets in the action.

The same process happens on checkout. The first tapes checked out are moved to 
the real i/o station, after the i/o station fills the tapes are just moved to 
vio status. When the operator empties an i/o station and closes the door, the 
library moves up to an i/o station worth two at a time to the real i/o station.

I believe that IBM is trying to slowly move features of the 3494 to the 3584. I 
suspect, but do not know that not all features will move, and there may be new 
features.

I am thinking of asking for one new feature. With the existing web interface to 
the 3584, one can see which volsers are in the real i/o station (really two i/o 
stations in our box), but one can not see what is in the virtual i/o station. I 
think that they should add this.

I am thinking that they should add an otherwise rules for the bar code rules. 
At this time if the library can not assign a tape to a virtual library based on 
the bar code. It allows any virtual library to pull it. This can happen if one 
places a good barcoded tape in the i/o station with no matching barcode rule, 
or if the library for any reason can not read the barcode correctly. I would 
like some feature where the tape is kept in the i/o station until someone does 
something with it. Or may assign it to a dummy virtual library, which could be 
site defined. Maybe an snmp trap to wave a flag that there is a problem.

  len

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Gill, Geoffrey L.
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 12:32 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] 3584 checkin/checkout

I'm wondering if I'm missing anything in our setup of the 3584 as it relates
to incoming and outgoing tapes. Currently the mainframe sends alerts to the
operators when the I/O port is full on the 3494 and needs emptying. Once
empty the checkout of tapes can continues. I was wondering how others manage
that on a 3584. Is there a way to send alerts when the port is full? I'd
hate to come in and find all the tapes were not ejected because the job
could not continue.



Second question relates to checking in tapes. On the 3494 you can insert
tapes to the I/O port and it automatically empties it and put tapes into
empty slots. I don't see this available with a 3584, but easily could have
missed it, so I'm wondering if there is a way to change a setting on the
library or automate this.



Thanks,



Geoff Gill

TSM Administrator

PeopleSoft Sr. Systems Administrator

SAIC M/S-G1b

(858)826-4062

Email:  <mailto:geoffrey.l.gill AT saic DOT com> geoffrey.l.gill AT saic DOT com