"Schuh, Richard" <rsc...@visa.com> wrote: > Does anyone know of a VMTAPE command, or commands, that can be used to change a tape in an IBM VTS from SCRATCH > status to SAVED and assign ownership to a user? The CATALOG command does not seem to work: > Sm vmtape catalog I00446 retpd 10 user joeuser > VMTCAT052E Volume 'I00446' is a 0002 SCRATCH tape. > VMTBUF0161I CATALOG completion code=28. > A bit about the configuration. > The tape is in an IBM VTS which is shared by three systems - MVS, VM, and TPF. > MVS and VM share the TMC which, of necessity, is owned by MVS. > TPF knows nothing about the TMS and wants to remain ignorant. > The tape in question was created by TPF, using the native VTS commands for mounting a scratch tape.. > Currently, both VM and MVS think that the tape is SCRATCH while the VTS knows better. > This is evident if I try to mount the tape by volser: > Vmtape mount i00446 181 > VMTRMS945I Volume I00446 in RMS location VMSYSATL is NOT SCRATCH which conflicts with the TMC, rejecting. > VMTMNT051T Mount I00446 0181 canceled by VMTAPE. > VMTBUF016I MOUNT completion code=100. > I know that it is possible to submit jobs to MVS to change the status from scratch to saved and to catalog tapes. > It would be nicer if it could be done from VM - sometimes the submitted jobs languish in the JES queue for a long time. Richard,
We went through this some long time ago and the solutions we came up with may not be the same as yours because the we may be fitting in with different other practices. However our experience may give you a few clues. The first thing we faced was that there are actually 3 different catalogues that needed to be kept into step :- a) The internal VTS catalogue - seen by all systems (and modifiable by all) b) The CA1-OS catalogue (VM & MVS only - Not TPF) c) The TCDB - Only seen and used by MVS and this must be set non-scratch for MVS to read the tape regardless of how CA-1 sees it. For our purposes we decided the following :- a) The VTS would not be logically partitioned so that tapes could be freely exchanged. b) A set range of tapes would be considered as VM/TPF and MVS would not scratch these and the TCDB would remain as active for all of these all the time. VM has a scratch process for these. c) TPF system use the VM scratch category 0080 to find its scratch tapes. d) TPF guest systems send a message to a VM server when they use a tape. The server then catalogues the tape with a series of EDIT commands. (There are quite a few things that may need to change in addition to the DSN & scratch status). e) For production TPF tapes the TPF logs are scanned and the same cataloguing using edit commands is performed. f) We run a daily scratch process on VM for expired VM & TPF tapes. g) Despite all this - there are occasions when the VTS internal status and the CA-1 catalogue gets out of step. We have a weekly reconciliation job. Of course, if you normally catalogue your TPF tapes through MVS then your process would be very different. We are now on our second generation of VTS (TS7700) after setting this process up many years ago. If you need to discuss our experiences in more detail (or to borrow any of our code samples) then please feel free to contact me directly. I hope this helps. Colin Allinson VM Systems Support Amadeus Data Processing GmbH
