In fact we found out that for lto-3 and lto-4 tape drives in an IBM 3584 library, it is required that they change the serial number to match the old tape drive. Because IBM tracks the drives by serial number for maint contracts. This we found when the serial numbers that we send in for a maint contract renewal were kicked out as field engineering had not been updating the serial numbers. But not for lto-2 tape drives.
len -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Sean English Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:47 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Replacing tape drives (or "there has to be a better way") Zoltan, The majority of our TSM servers are AIX and we do have a setup where we share multiple library clients with one library. When we have IBM CEs come out and replace drives, they just change the serial number on the new drive to match the old drive they are replacing. Apparently there is a way to do that on the drive itself. Thanks, Sean Zoltan Forray/AC/VCU <zfor...@vcu.edu> Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> 07/08/2009 11:30 AM Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> To ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU cc Subject [ADSM-L] Replacing tape drives (or "there has to be a better way") I need thoughts/suggestions/help on how to deal with SAN attached tape drive replacements when a library is shared amongst 5-servers. We just has a drive replaced, therefore giving us a new serial number (3494ATL - TS1130). All servers that use these drives/libraries are RedHat Linux and use very current lin_tape drivers. Currently, the method we use is to bounce each server so the system rescans the SAN and gets the new serial number. In the past, just stopping the TSM server and then restarting the lin_tape driver would often be enough. Now with the latest lin_tape drivers, I don't see the lin_taped daemon running any more. Yes, I have tried updating the paths on the library manager server and telling it to autodetect but that didn't help. There has to be a better way! If you have a similar configuration, how do you handle this scenario?