Re: 8mm tape - is capacity the issue? -- MIDRANGE-L

Dennis,

There appears to be a BIGGER issue here!  Other than the new 8mm AME
cartridges, 8mm tape is cheap!!

It sounds like you are only backing up this one file daily.  What about the
rest of your system?  What happens if the tape goes bad & you REALLY need
stuff from several days ago!  What happens if you have a fire & need to
reconstruct your data & programs.  At a minimum, this file doesn't seem to
be OFFSITE.

Some folks think that they are protected with Raid or Mirroring.  I've seen
too many times when these technologies have failed.  THE #1 REASON FOR
AS/400 MANAGERS GETTING FIRED FOR NOT HAVING AN EFFECTIVE BACKUP & RECOVERY
STRATEGY.

See chapter 2 of the AS/400 Backup & Recovery guide for more info at:

 http://publib.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr/DOCNUM/SC41-5304-02

' don't mean to be a nudge & I hope that I DID read more into the situation
than was intended!

Hope this helps!

John Myers
IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Technical Solutions
Strategic Business Systems, Inc.
300 Lake Street, Suite B, Ramsey, NJ 07446  USA
E-mail: mailto:jmyers@sbsusa.com   Phone: +1 (201) EASY 400   x131
Web:    http://www.sbsusa.com      Fax:   +1 (201) 327-6984

Instant AS/400 Web Guestbooks & Internet Surveys - WebSurvey/400
     http://www.sbsusa.com/internet/inpuzsvy.htm

Prove that your shipment got there - Proof of Delivery!
     http://www.sbsusa.com/docmgmt/dmsol4u.htm


At 03:49 PM 3/4/99 -0600, you wrote:
>I do a special backup of a major library every night to 8mm tape as part of
>"day end" processing.                  
>
>Right now I can get 18-19 backups before the tape is full.  What I have been
>doing is changing the tape after 15 days but that assumes one remembers to
>change the tape.
>
>Rather than getting a call at 2:10AM when the third shift cannot sign on to
>the system and having to go in just to change the tape, I would like to be
>able to determine when the tape is getting "close" to full or what
>percentage of full it is.
>
>If anyone has figured this out, I am interested in hearing your solution.
>
>TIA
>
>Dilbert's Words Of Wisdom:
>"I love deadlines.  I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they
>go flying by."
>
>Dennis Munro   
>Badger Mining Corporation
>dmunro@badgerminingcorp.com <mailto:dmunro@badgerminingcorp.com> 
>
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