RE: Writing multiple CD volumes for the AS/400?

Brad,

When I was managing a shop, my views were the same as Rob's.

Back in the mid-80's EMC was offering a promotion where they'd swap double
their memory for IBM's, at no charge.  IIRC, some of our sister-companies
went that route.  I proposed to do same to my boss, the acting-CEO.  He
rejected it, not on the premise that the memory would ever fail, but by
asking what would be the consequence IF the memory failed just ONE time.  He
almost never rejected one of my proposals (probably because I almost never
made any...;-), but I decided he was right, in this case.

David B~~, President of BCC, posted to this list a while back.  You might
contact him to see how tough a market this is.  My guess is that his target
audience is some smaller segment of the total 400 market (maybe 25%...?).
Those companies that are willing to take a risk to save some bucks and/or
get an improvement over IBM's offerings.

I think this is a much smaller subset of the total market, because iSeries
customers are known to pay the premium for the platform.  They do this
precisely so they don't have to deal with problems about whether the system
is gonna work, or not, on any given day...


JMHO.

jt

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of rob@dekko.com
| Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 8:45 AM
| To: midrange-l@midrange.com
| Subject: Re: Writing multiple CD volumes for the AS/400?
|
|
|
| Savlib's to save files with DTACPR(*Yes) is significantly smaller than
| without.
|
| Well, I see a recent post about how reliable CD's are.  However I seem to
| recall a post not too long ago disputing that fact.
|
| As far as data on CD's being standard.  Let's see we have standard CD's,
| mini CD's, DVD,...
|
| We would be nervous.  For one thing, we like the support of IBM.  We keep
| current on OS's and cum's in ways we can't even discuss.  Risking our
| backup while waiting for a fix for a third party while we wait for the
| finger pointing to die down ain't our bag - been there, done that -
| replaced many disk drives.
|
| Having a PC control our backup - no way.
|
| Wondering how long a company may be in business.  Wondering how
| long it may
| take to get a backup drive in a disaster situation.  Not really hungry to
| try these.
|
| Rob Berendt
|
| ==================
| "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
| safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
| Benjamin Franklin
|
|
|
|                     Brad Jensen
|                     <brad@elstore.com>        To:
| midrange-l@midrange.com
|                     Sent by:                  cc:
|                     midrange-l-admin@mi       Fax to:
|                     drange.com                Subject:
| Writing multiple CD volumes for the AS/400?
|
|
|                     12/04/2001 05:54 PM
|                     Please respond to
|                     midrange-l
|
|
|
|
|
|
| I have a neat little product, Niagra CD Recorder, that plugs
| into an AS/400 and looks like a tape dirve. You savlib to it, it
| writes it out to a CD Recorder.
|
| One problem is that I don't know how to make multiple-CD
| volumes, so if the savlib is over 650 MB, I can't do it on
| multipler CDs. What I mean is, I know how to do it, I just don't
| know what IBM expects as a signal on the CD that the volume is
| continued on the next CD.
|
| Anybody know, or know who to ask at IBM, or where to get info?
|
| I looked for a redbook that tells this, if it is out there I
| haven't found it. (No surprise.)
|
| Second is I have been doing some savlibs thru this to a PC disk,
| and ZIP compressing them. Library of program souce and object
| code compress about 60%. Librarys full of database files
| compress up to 94%!
|
| (That AS/400, not PC/INS stuff).
|
| Which means you could backup as much as 10 gigabytes of data on
| a CD (they cost about 25 cents to 50 cents.)
|
| You cannot read that CD on an AS/400 directly, but - but - there
| are c libraries to do this sort of compression. If IBM would put
| the decompression in the AS/400 side, I would use the same on my
| side to create the CDs.
|
| And the other thing I can do is stand in the middle between the
| tape connection and the CD, and transparently decompress it (and
| fix my multiple volume problem also.)
|
| (Pat pending.)
|
| Would you guys be neervous about using CDs as a backup format?
| Would you be okay with using them in my 'drive' (actually a PC
| with SCSI connection and CD/RW) rather than directly on the
| AS/400 if they are over 650 MB?
|
| This has been in use for about 4 years by the way. We never got
| excited about it because of the capacity problems.
|
| Brad Jensen
|
| ESC - We bring strange things to life
|
|
|
|
| --
| Brad Jensen brad@elstore.com
| President
| Electronic Storage Corporation Tulsa OK USA
| 918-664-7276
|
| LaserVault Report Retrieval & Data Mining
| www.Laservault.com
|
| www.eufrates.com - Add distance learning to
| your site with easy course preparation