As Timothy stated, there are may options. Some (CA-1/Copycat, TLMS/Copycat, Tivoli Tape Optimizer, TAPESAVER, FATSCOPY) will copy tapes files AFTER they have been created and stack them together. CA-Vtape is a true virtual-tape emulation that uses existing dasd as the cache and then "stacks" the copies on the backend high-capacity cartridges. So a lot really depends on what you are trying to eliminate. Any of these would allow you to consolidate and fully utilize the new higher-capacity drives. If you are also trying to eliminate the number of physical drives you use; then a true virtual-tape emulation will be needed. That would either by an IBM VTS, Sun/STK VSM, CA-Vtape, the EMC Copycross or a few others. Most require some specific hardward purchase, but EMC will work if you already have an EMC dasd device and CA-Vtape will work with any dasd devices.
Russell Witt CA-1 Level-2 Support Manager -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Greg Grimm Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 12:43 PM To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU Subject: Software only VTS? We are going to replace our tape hardware (Tape Library (ATL), VTS). In investigating how our "other operating systems" use tapes I found that they use IBM TSM to talk directly to the ATL - and get high tape utilization (i.e. stacking multiple files on tape). kind of like a software VTS. Is there a product that supports this function on z/OS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html