RE: BRMS holiday experience

["Graap, Ken" <keg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry you have had so many problems with BRMS... I personally don't use a
MLB, just 3 - 3590 drives with 10 tape capacity cartridge loaders.

I'm pretty sure IBM SupportLine could work through the problem you are
having initializing tapes though. 

As for how we each decide to initialize our tapes... I guess it is just a
matter of opinion. I just wanted to share how I did things. It has worked
well for me over the last 7+ years.... 

Good Luck.

Kenneth

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jeff Crosby
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 2:54 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: BRMS holiday experience


I'll have to digest most of your post before responding to all of it, but
I'll start now:

> #1 - A "Scratch Pool" is just a bunch of tapes that have been 
> initialized by BRMS. Usually this is done via the INZMEDBRM command.

I have _never_ been able to initialize a new blank tape in either 3581 I
have to a name I want.  I have spent hours and hours on more than one
occasion to no avail.  I have tried INZTAP and INZMEDBRM.  I have physically
loaded it into the drive via front panel controls and I have mounted it thru
WRKMLBBRM.  The only thing I was ever able to do was intialize to "BLK001".
That's it.  I have always ended up doing:

1) VRYCFG TAPMLBxx *OFF
2) VRYCFG TAPxx *ON
3) Initialize
4) VRYCFG TAPxx *OFF 
5) VRYCFG TAPMLBxx *ON

> Give each tape a unique Volume Serial Number and let BRMS 
> control when a tape can be used based on expiration date.

My tapes names are unique and expire when I want (except for this holiday
thing).  And they have a name that means something.  Why does everybody tell
me to do it another way?  This is the simplest way I could come up with for
the operator.