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  1.  Home
  2. MIDRANGE-L
  3. September 2017

RE: BRMS failure

Jack,

I had a similar issue years back.

It was related to reservations.

Here's the summary from IBM BRMS development.

- When an operation needing a tape resource runs and needs a tape drive
the tape code will attempt to reserve a tape drive. If it cannot get a
reservation on it's first choice it will try again to reserve another
drive. It will do this repeatedly until it gets a reservation or until
all drive resources have been tried. Assuming a drive is found that is
available a 'reservation' is put on the tape drive resource. This
reservation exists on the tape drive itself and is assigned to a
specific adapter port by World Wide Port Name (WWPN). This reservation will be persistent until the host releases the reservation. If anything
stops the host from releasing the reservation the drive will remain
reserved and can only be used by that specific port adapter.

- Once a drive is reserved and a tape needs to be mounted, tape code
will check to see if the tape is already mounted in another drive. If
the tape is mounted in another drive the system running the operation
needing a tape resource will attempt to reserve the tape drive that the
tape is mounted in. If it gets the reservation for a short period of
time the job will have caused two drives to be reserved. The first drive
will be released shortly, however if multiple jobs are starting at the
same time that need drives it is possible that each job could reserve
multiple drives for short periods of time and some job may not be able
to get a drive. Operations requiring more than one tape resource such as
DUPMEDBRM or DUPTAP can magnify this issue. Slightly staggering job
start times can reduce this possibility.

- Different types of errors (user, job, device) can cause a reservation to be left hanging on a drive. Once this happens, only the system using the adapter port with the proper WWPN will be able to use the tape drive
or release the reservation.

- Although it may not be common; changes to the fabric can make it
impossible for a system to release a reservation. For example:

Job Runs and TAP01 is reserved
Job ends abnormally and does not release reservation
Fibre cable is moved to a different adapter port
At this point there is no way any of the host systems can release this
reservation...

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jack Woehr
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2017 1:28 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: BRMS failure

Trying that right now.

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 11:18 AM, Jim Oberholtzer < midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I think Rob might be on to the PTFs. Strong suggestion:

Get the QMGTOOLS library from IBM (Google QMGTOOLS tools and it will
be the first on the list)

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1011297

In that tool option 7 is the Save/Restore menu, then option 9 compares
the PTFs on the system with the ones at IBM. It includes PTFs that
have not been put into a group yet. Provides a really nice list to copy into Fix
Central with. I'd get them all.


--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Rob Berendt
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2017 12:12 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: BRMS failure

That's pretty definitive. And that is the most recent library and
drive firmware.

Cleaning lady doesn't come in at that time of the night, unplug the
tape library and plug in her vacuum cleaner, does she?

You might want to call IBM. Because, short of making sure that you
have the latest MF* ptf's to go along with the card supporting that
drive, ensuring the card is in the best slot for that, ensuring that
you're not dynamically moving the card from lpar-to-lpar to do
backups, and a few other things, it's getting tricky.


Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail
to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Jack Woehr <jwoehr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 09/28/2017 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: BRMS failure
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>



The drives are new: we replaced them Tuesday. They have the latest
firmware, I checked.
I flashed the latest library firmware right after that on Tuesday.
The library is a TS3100 (3573) at firmware revision E.20 / 3.20e The
drives are ULT3580-HH3 at firmware revision 93GQ

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 10:35 AM, Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There's drive firmware,
and there's library firmware.
What make/model of library?
What make/model of drive(s) in that library?



Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Jack Woehr <jwoehr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 09/28/2017 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: BRMS failure
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>



Jim, we changed the drives two days ago and I flashed the latest
firmware
after that.

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 9:56 AM, Jim Oberholtzer <
midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

No, that's the correct status for a standalone tape library/device
(if
it's
NPIV with fibre, it's different)

Reading your other message about rebooting the library so often
leads
me
to
a though, when was the library and tape device microcode updated?
It's easy and reasonbly fast to do (about 15 minutes on most
libraries) and I'm beginning to wonder if that's the problem.

Remember your tape library is a computer too, just a specialized
one,
that
needs update and back up itself every now and then.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jack Woehr
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2017 10:35 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: BRMS failure

So if it shows:

TAPMLB01 VARIED ON
TAP01 OPERATIONAL ALLOCATED

Should I de-allocate it?

On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 8:38 AM, Steinmetz, Paul
<PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Jack,

WRKMLBSTS

You should see all your drives.
If another process has a drive, it should appear.

Device/
Job
Resource Status Allocation name
TAPMLB01 VARIED ON
TAP02 OPERATIONAL UNPROTECTED
TAP01 OPERATIONAL UNPROTECTED
TAP04 OPERATIONAL UNPROTECTED
TAP03 OPERATIONAL UNPROTECTED

Paul



-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
Of
Steve Pitcher
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2017 10:09 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: BRMS failure

Here's a good troubleshooting guide on that.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1020679


Steve Pitcher
iTech Solutions
Mobile: (902) 301-0810
http://www.itechsol.com
http://www.iInTheCloud.com


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
Of
Jack Woehr
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2017 10:50 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: BRMS failure

Our backups are failing thusly. It makes no sense at all.
There are tapes.
There is nothing else accessing the library.
What's going on? I've tried everything I can think of.

Message ID . . . . . . : BRM1033 Severity . . . . . . . :
99
Message type . . . . . :
Inquiry
Date sent . . . . . . : 09/28/17 Time sent . . . . . . :
01:54:39


Message . . . . : Devices needed by control group not available.
(C
R)
Cause . . . . . : Devices TAPMLB01 in the device list for control
group
type cannot be allocated because they are being used by other
jobs
or other

systems.
Recovery . . . : Do one of the
following:
-- Type C to cancel control group processing.
-- Wait for devices to become available, and type R to try
the operation

again.
Possible choices for replying to message . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
:
C -- Cancel
processing.
R -- Try the operation again.


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