Managing scratch volumes in multiple libraries AND also on stg pool level
is just too much work for little gain.

Like Wanda said before the stg pool parm works great in small setups with
limited number of tape slots.

With multiple tsm servers each having multiple stg pools and connected to
multiple libraries I haven't seen a good use of it esp with vta's.

If you get a big list of volumes to have to do move data on, tsm scripts
work great (with wait=yes). As they where scratch volumes to begin with
they will automatically return to scratch after the move completes
Op 14 okt. 2014 14:48 schreef "Lindes, Michael" <michael.lindes AT siemens DOT 
com
>:

> If you get any i/o problems with the library due to a hardware problem all
> the scratch tapes can get pulled into one storage pool, get a little data
> written to them, then marked as read-only. If you have 9999 or more tapes
> suddenly used up, you'll be left with a lot of clean up. Like manually
> migrating data from all the tapes that have a tiny bit of data written to
> them, then setting them back to scratch.
>
> If you know roughly how much data is written to tape on a daily basis, or
> weekly, or monthly basis, you can estimate how many tapes you use. If you
> are not sure, you can estimate on the high end... even on the very high end.
>
> Setting maxscratch to a lower threshold will allow you to become aware of
> a hardware problem sooner. If you notice you run out of scratch tapes
> sooner than expected, you can check if several tapes are set to read-only
> with little data written to them. Not such a big deal with it's only 10
> tapes or even 100 tapes... but if it's 10000 tapes, it'll be a pretty big
> cleanup effort.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu] On Behalf 
> Of
> Karel Bos
> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2014 9:59 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu
> Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] maxscratch
>
> Would use a number a bit higher than 9999 as we had stgpools with 20-30k
> volumes in it.....
>
> 2014-10-10 15:34 GMT+02:00 Prather, Wanda <Wanda.Prather AT icfi DOT com>:
>
> > Just pointing out a more common use of maxscratch that I see at
> > smaller customers, which is in conjunction with collocation.
> >
> > If you have collocation set to node (or filespace), then TSM is going
> > to try and put each node (or filespace) on a separate cartridge.
> > So if you have a smaller library, with 60 slots you can use for a
> > storage pool, but 120 clients to back up, you set maxscratch to 60 and
> > TSM will stack 2 nodes per cartridge.
> >
> > If you aren't using collocation, or have some other reason for
> > limiting cartridge use, you can just set maxscratch to 9999.
> >
> > W
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
> > Of Thomas Denier
> > Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 8:56 AM
> > To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] maxscratch
> >
> > If scratch tapes are also used for purposes other than storage pool
> > volumes, such as database backups, the sum of the maxscratch values
> > should be a bit less than the number of volumes in the library.
> >
> > Thomas Denier
> > Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
> > Of David Ehresman
> > Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 8:38 AM
> > To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] maxscratch
> >
> > Eric,
> >
> > That is correct.  If you use maxscratch, it should be set to the total
> > number of volumes you want a particular storagepool to use.  If you
> > have multiple storagepools sharing a tape library (virtual or not),
> > the sum of their maxscratches should equal the number of volumes in the
> library.
> > Using maxscratch in this way lets you forecast when you will need
> > additional volumes.  Alternatively, you can set maxscratch to a high
> > number and not worry about it; you however lose the information about
> > how soon you might need to add new volumes.
> >
> > David
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
> > Of Loon, EJ van (SPLXM) - KLM
> > Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 6:54 AM
> > To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] maxscratch
> >
> > Hi Steven!
> > So if I understand your explanation correctly, for a storagepool used
> > by one server only, the maxscratch should always be equal to the total
> > amount of volumes in this pool? So when adding new scratches, one has
> > to raise the maxscratch with an equal amount?
> > Kind regards,
> > Eric van Loon
> > AF/KLM Storage Engineering
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
> > Of Steven Langdale
> > Sent: donderdag 9 oktober 2014 10:20
> > To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > Subject: Re: maxscratch
> >
> > Eric
> >
> > It's the max number of vols that can be used from the scratch pool by
> > the particular stgpool.  so in your instance (assuming you have a
> > single stgpool with all 4000 private takes in it AND it got them from
> > the scratch pool), if you set it to 1000 you won't be able to use
> > anymore new scratch tapes until the usage goes below 1000.
> >
> > You can look as it as a way to stop a single stpool stealing all of
> > the scratch tapes.
> >
> > Steven
> >
> > On 9 October 2014 08:53, Loon, EJ van (SPLXM) - KLM
> > <Eric-van.Loon AT klm DOT com
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi guys!
> > > I never used the maxscratch value for our VTL libraries, but I'm
> > > just wondering how it works.
> > > From the TSM Reference manual:
> > >
> > > MAXSCRatch
> > > Specifies the maximum number of scratch volumes that the server can
> > > request for this storage pool. This parameter is optional. You can
> > > specify an integer from 0 to 100000000. By allowing the server to
> > > request scratch volumes as needed, you avoid having to define each
> > volume to be used.
> > >
> > > What is meant by scratch volumes here? The total amount of scratch
> > > tapes when you start with an empty TSM server or the amount of
> > > scratches in the current situation?
> > > For instance, I have a server with 4000 private tapes and 1000
> > > scratch tapes. Should I set it to 1000 or 5000?
> > > Thanks for your help in advance!
> > > Kind regards,
> > > Eric van Loon
> > > AF/KLM Storage Engineering
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