Re: IBM i support and tape cartridges -- MIDRANGE-L

I haven't seen IBM i STOP supporting tape, beyond the adapters themselves
being no longer available. I mean, If you had an LTO1 SCSI HVD tape, how
would you connect it to a P10 nowadays? On the contrary, I've used LTO
drives of higher generations than IBM i even knew about (say, LTO4 on a
v5r2 machine) and other than having to initialize them with the "tape
default" keyword instead of being able to specify LTO4 I had no issues.
There's not really that much going on with the SCSI/FC protocols that would
make IBM i stop supporting a tape drive, other than EoSL for the machines
involved and you needing to involve IBM support but... If you are emulating
a tape drive with a DD, does IBM even care what model you use? Support is
on the DD's side isn't it?
One reason I can think for moving up from LTO7 is the presented capacity if
you don't care about duplicating to physical tapes.
I don't know why you call it a myth, but until the technology didn't allow
it, LTO did adhere to R/W -1 and R -2, it is only in the last two gens that
they didn't keep to that and I'm pretty sure it was for technical reasons.

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 at 11:26, Rob Berendt <robertowenberendt@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

1-No, I do not have any physical tape whatsoever. If this was an
admonishment for an "air gap" we're using Safe Guarded Copy for that.
2-No I am not a member of LUG as I am only using Scale Out systems and you
have to order those by the ship container load to qualify for LUG. Being
an IBM Champion and some other stuff I do does give me access to some
information not generally available. However, if I knew of any upcoming
thing that was not generally available I couldn't even hint at it. (and,
no, this is not to be intended as a hint itself)
3-I think we upgraded from LTO5 to LTO7 when we upgraded our old Data
Domains as they reached out of service.
4-As far as whether or not this matters, this is what I'm trying to figure
out. It would be nice if there was a chart of tape support for release of
IBM i much like the IT Jungle article today had on tape compatibility and
the busted myth that LTO can read/write x-1 and read x-2. This is probably
why we only went to LTO7 on the VTL. I suppose I could start weaning over
to a higher level just to be ready for the next thing(s). We have no LTO5
left. The last were duped to LTO7 some time ago.

On Mon, Apr 1, 2024 at 10:01 AM Jim Oberholtzer <
midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

In accordance with your penchant for keeping on the bleeding edge of
releases LTO9 has been out since 2021. LTO7 came out in 2012.

The current model of the tape library is 3588.

That said, I always tell my customers to set up the VTL to match whatever
physical tape you have on the system (You do have an Oh S**t physical

tape

don't you?) that you off load the critical updates to for off site and
retention purposes. Physical tape can't be beset by hackers, malware,
etc.

Since IBM i supports everything at the levels you're at, does it matter?
You are a member of the LUG, have they talked about dropping support for
LTO6, 7 or 8?

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects

On Mon, Apr 1, 2024 at 8:43 AM Rob Berendt <robertowenberendt@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

When using a VTL is there any reason to be concerned about what models

you

emulate? We haven't had a physical tape library or any physical tape

media

in a decade.
My question is mainly if WRKHDWRSC *STG shows this
Resource Type-model
USSG7VTL 3584-400
TAP62 3580-007
TAP55 3580-007
TAP61 3580-007
TAP58 3580-007
TAP56 3580-007
TAP57 3580-007
TAP59 3580-007
TAP60 3580-007
is there any possibility that some future release will say LTO7 not
supported and/or 3584 is not supported? As many of you know I tend to

rush

to a new release of IBM i as soon as I can.
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