Angus, 

You can use the delete volhist command to move your older db backup tapes to 
scratch status. 
Look at help del volhist. There are various options to control which tapes 
handled. 

len 

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Angus Macdonald
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 11:11 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Total newbie question about DB Backups

I'm just in the process of implementing TSM 5.3 for the first time in our
environment and I'm following the TSM Implementation Guide (June 2006
edition) redbook very closely ;-) Things are going pretty well so far but I
have a bit of an issue with my database backups. Every DB backup seems to
use another scratch tape so my 3582 is going to run out of tapes very
quickly. My backup command is

Backup DB type=full devc=lto2-dc

lifted directly from the redbook. How can I limit the number of tapes used
for DB backups? I tried limiting the backup to a particular tape volume but
the tape is apparently in use after the first backup and cannot be reused.

Angus