Re: TS2900 Media Library.

Jorge--

One of the biggest things to get used to with a "Media LiBrary" (that's the MLB) is that you work with the library for the most part. And you can't just use a tape drive.

To use a tape drive:
You have to -allocate- the drive you want to use,
Tell the MLB to do something with a tape cartridge-- do something with TAPMLB99 using cartridge A12345,
Then -de-allocate- the drive.

Some advantages of use an MLB:
If you have multiple drives in the MLB, you can allocate drive #1, and, if it's busy, the MLB will swap your job to drive #2. All transparent to you.
You can keep a day's/week's worth of blank tapes 'on board,' and eject them as they're used.

Some operational things:
When you load a tape into the MLB you need to initialize it pretty quick. We use the Robot/Save product to handle our tape backups. If an uninitialized tape is selected for a backup, the backup process chokes, because it's an 'unlabeled tape.'

And I hate to disagree with DrFranken, but here's how we do our Option 22 backup, using the MLB:

1. Create a tape Category. A tape category is a group of tapes that is assigned a common name. These only have to be created once.
We created one to hold tapes available for our backup:
CRTTAPCGY CGY(AVAIL2122 *CURRENT)
And a 2nd category to group the tapes once used:
CRTTAPCGY CGY(OPTION2122 *CURRENT)

2. Change a tape Cartridge (or 2) to be a member of the "Available" group.
CHGTAPCTG DEV(TAPMLB99) CTG(A12345) CGY(AVAIL2122 *CURRENT)

Note that the abbreviation for Cartridge is CTG
And the abbreviation for Category is CGY...

Steps 1 and 2 can be done at any time.

3. Go to Restricted State
ENDSBS *ALL
We IPL the system at this point, so any PTFs to be applied will be included in the Option 22 Backup which follows

4. WRKMLBSTS to view the status of the library

5. We vary the MLB Off then On to reset the connection

6. We de-allocate all of the drives, then allocate the drive to be used.

7. Set the Tape Category. This command is used to tell the MLB which groups of tapes to use if a command is received that says VOL(*MOUNTED).
SETTAPCGY DEV(TAPMLB99) OPTION(*MOUNTED) CGY(AVAIL2122)
CTGORDER(*NEXTAVAIL) TGTCGY(OPTION2122) MNTID(OPTION2122)

Using two Categories, any tape commands will use cartridges from the AVAIL2122 group, and, when finished, move them to the OPTION2122 group. This helps prevent a 'good' tape from being used accidentally.

8. GO SAVE and run option 22. Enter the MLB name for DEVICES and set your parameters the way you normally would. This assumes VOL(*MOUNTED).

9. Un-set the tape category
SETTAPCGY DEV(TAPMLB99) OPTION(*DEMOUNTED)

10. WRKMLBSTS and de-allocate the drive you selected earlier.

It seems like a lot of steps (and steps 4-6 may be overkill), but we've wrapped a lot of this in our own custom commands so we have less typing to do.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx