Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Someone there may be getting confused. The IBM DS8300 is a virtual tape system. It can work standalone as a disk based VTS or, in conjunction with the robotics side to make it a tape based VTS system (with a very large disk cache). Then, there is the IBM TS1120. These are real tape drives (not virtual). So, if your VM system can get access to your IBM TS1120 drives, just backup to them for off site storage. If you can only get access to the virtual tapes, then backup to a virtual tape and, on a system that has access to the IBM TS1120, do a tape copy from the virtual tape located in the IBM DS8300 to a real tape mounted in the IBM TS1120. The IBM TS1120 drives support hardware encryption. That is great. However, in a disaster recovery situation, it may not be so great. Until you get the disaster recovery tested with encryption, you may want to create your VM recovery tapes, without encryption enabled. With the VTS, you do have to execute some code to tell the VTS what tape you want. VMTAPE should be able to handle this. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting Law of Cat Obstruction A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic. Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3/24/2008 1:41 PM We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Hi Ann, When you say VMTAPE ... I assume you mean CA's VM:Tape product. If this is the case, just call CA's VM Customer Support or open an issue yourself for VM:Tape via CASupport so we can get a bit more information about your configuration and make some recommendations about what the best options are for what you need to do. JR JR (Steven) Imler CA Senior Software Engineer Tel: +1 703 708 3479 Fax: +1 703 708 3267 [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 02:42 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
We do DDR's and SPXTAPE every day to virtual (VTS) tapes. Treat them like physical tapes. SPXTAPE's for DR - same as using physical tapes: if the spool files won't fit on one tape you'll need to mount enough scratch tapes for SPXTAPE to use: vmtape mount scratch 181 dsn jrr.spxtape.1OF3 (retpd 21 vmtape mount scratch 182 dsn jrr.spxtape.2OF3 (retpd 21 vmtape mount scratch 183 dsn jrr.spxtape.3OF3 (retpd 21 CP SPXTAPE DUMP 181-183 SPOOL ALL (or whatever subsets of spool you want) I haven't tried it in a long time, but if you're not using the DFSMS sharing exit (or are, but code its rexx exec to allow it), you can mount any volid in the VTS by using DFSMSRM MOUNT commands. I'm not sure if VMTAPE supports that. Experiment, try it. The fine print on DFSMSRM MOUNT says a peer-to-peer VTS won't let you change a volume's category but that's not a show-stopper, shouldn't need to. This e-mail, including any attachments, may be confidential, privileged or otherwise legally protected. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this e-mail in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, do not disseminate, copy or otherwise use this e-mail or its attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system. From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:42 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Adding Spool Volumes
My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that changing the slot numbers for page is no problem, and I cannot think of a good reason for the system to care about the placement of T-disk, but what about the Dump? It is a part of Spool, but it gets reallocated at IPL. Is there anything that would break if the dump disks moved from slots 16 and 17 to 31 and 32? Slots Use 1-20 Spool 21-30 Reserved 31-32 Dump 33-54 Page 55-64 Reserved 65T-disk Regards, Richard Schuh
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
Richard, I allocate the first 1000 cylinders of each of my (3390-9) page volumes as SPOL, then mark it as DUMP space in SYSTEM CONFIG. That would free up your dedicated DUMP volumes, which could be redeployed as spool. Best regards, Mark L. Wheeler IT Infrastructure, 3M Center B224-4N-20, St Paul MN 55144 Tel: (651) 733-4355, Fax: (651) 736-7689 mlwheeler at mmm.com -- I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go. Rachel Joy Scott Schuh, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: The IBM To z/VM OperatingIBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU System cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU Subject Adding Spool Volumes 03/24/2008 04:13 PM Please respond to The IBM z/VM Operating System [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that changing the slot numbers for page is no problem, and I cannot think of a good reason for the system to care about the placement of T-disk, but what about the Dump? It is a part of Spool, but it gets reallocated at IPL. Is there anything that would break if the dump disks moved from slots 16 and 17 to 31 and 32? Slots Use 1-20 Spool 21-30 Reserved 31-32 Dump 33-54 Page 55-64 Reserved 65T-disk Regards, Richard Schuh
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
Richard, You could lose any existing CP dump files that are still in SPOOL when you reallocate. AFAIK, VMDUMP files go on regular SPOOL volumes, so they shouldn't be affected. If the existing dump volumes are becoming regular SPOOL volumes, with the same volsers and slots, I would expect existing dumps to be intact. If you keep your dump volsers the same, but move them to new slots, you'll lose the pointers to the dump files. Just make sure you SPXTAPE or DUMPLOAD existing dumps before you shut down, and you'll be fine. Dennis O'Brien No government deprives its citizens of rights without asserting that its actions are reasonable and necessary for high-sounding reasons such as public safety. A right that can be regulated is no right at all, only a temporary privilege dependent upon the good will of the very government officials that such right is designed to constrain. -- Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, attorneys for Gun Owners of America From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schuh, Richard Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 14:13 To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: [IBMVM] Adding Spool Volumes My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that changing the slot numbers for page is no problem, and I cannot think of a good reason for the system to care about the placement of T-disk, but what about the Dump? It is a part of Spool, but it gets reallocated at IPL. Is there anything that would break if the dump disks moved from slots 16 and 17 to 31 and 32? Slots Use 1-20 Spool 21-30 Reserved 31-32 Dump 33-54 Page 55-64 Reserved 65T-disk Regards, Richard Schuh
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Thanks for the info. We did install DFSMS - at least now have an RMSMASTR id. But the new tape hardware is not yet installed. But we'll still be using VMTAPE since it manages the tape catalog. -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Romanowski, John (OFT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:17 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment We do DDR's and SPXTAPE every day to virtual (VTS) tapes. Treat them like physical tapes. SPXTAPE's for DR - same as using physical tapes: if the spool files won't fit on one tape you'll need to mount enough scratch tapes for SPXTAPE to use: vmtape mount scratch 181 dsn jrr.spxtape.1OF3 (retpd 21 vmtape mount scratch 182 dsn jrr.spxtape.2OF3 (retpd 21 vmtape mount scratch 183 dsn jrr.spxtape.3OF3 (retpd 21 CP SPXTAPE DUMP 181-183 SPOOL ALL (or whatever subsets of spool you want) I haven't tried it in a long time, but if you're not using the DFSMS sharing exit (or are, but code its rexx exec to allow it), you can mount any volid in the VTS by using DFSMSRM MOUNT commands. I'm not sure if VMTAPE supports that. Experiment, try it. The fine print on DFSMSRM MOUNT says a peer-to-peer VTS won't let you change a volume's category but that's not a show-stopper, shouldn't need to. This e-mail, including any attachments, may be confidential, privileged or otherwise legally protected. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this e-mail in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, do not disseminate, copy or otherwise use this e-mail or its attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system. From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:42 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. * * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
Still wouldn't be enough in the sequence. Adding those 2 slots would still leave me 3 short. Other than that, I really don't see the point. With today's disk architecture, that type of distinction is perhaps meaningless. Besides, the space is reserved regardless of where it resides. Regards, Richard Schuh -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Wheeler Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:20 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Adding Spool Volumes Richard, I allocate the first 1000 cylinders of each of my (3390-9) page volumes as SPOL, then mark it as DUMP space in SYSTEM CONFIG. That would free up your dedicated DUMP volumes, which could be redeployed as spool. Best regards, Mark L. Wheeler IT Infrastructure, 3M Center B224-4N-20, St Paul MN 55144 Tel: (651) 733-4355, Fax: (651) 736-7689 mlwheeler at mmm.com -- I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go. Rachel Joy Scott Schuh, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: The IBM To z/VM Operating IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU System cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU Subject Adding Spool Volumes 03/24/2008 04:13 PM Please respond to The IBM z/VM Operating System [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that changing the slot numbers for page is no problem, and I cannot think of a good reason for the system to care about the placement of T-disk, but what about the Dump? It is a part of Spool, but it gets reallocated at IPL. Is there anything that would break if the dump disks moved from slots 16 and 17 to 31 and 32? Slots Use 1-20 Spool 21-30 Reserved 31-32 Dump 33-54 Page 55-64 Reserved 65T-disk Regards, Richard Schuh
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
It's probably me that is confused. I have been told VM will have virtual tape but no native tape. They also have used the term 'backend tape'. I obviously have more to learn. -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Duerbusch Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:14 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment Someone there may be getting confused. The IBM DS8300 is a virtual tape system. It can work standalone as a disk based VTS or, in conjunction with the robotics side to make it a tape based VTS system (with a very large disk cache). Then, there is the IBM TS1120. These are real tape drives (not virtual). So, if your VM system can get access to your IBM TS1120 drives, just backup to them for off site storage. If you can only get access to the virtual tapes, then backup to a virtual tape and, on a system that has access to the IBM TS1120, do a tape copy from the virtual tape located in the IBM DS8300 to a real tape mounted in the IBM TS1120. The IBM TS1120 drives support hardware encryption. That is great. However, in a disaster recovery situation, it may not be so great. Until you get the disaster recovery tested with encryption, you may want to create your VM recovery tapes, without encryption enabled. With the VTS, you do have to execute some code to tell the VTS what tape you want. VMTAPE should be able to handle this. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting Law of Cat Obstruction A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic. Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3/24/2008 1:41 PM We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Yes I do mean the CA VMTAPE product. I have opened issues with CA. I need to upgrade both VMTAPE and VMBACKUP, apply a patch to support encryption and convert to LMP keys. I've never supported these products but the folks at CA who support them are very helpful. No problems there. They are great to work with. I'm just trying to see how other VM Support folks make use of virtual tape in regards to DDR and SPXTAPE for maintenance and for DR. From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Imler, Steven J Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:16 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment Hi Ann, When you say VMTAPE ... I assume you mean CA's VM:Tape product. If this is the case, just call CA's VM Customer Support or open an issue yourself for VM:Tape via CASupport so we can get a bit more information about your configuration and make some recommendations about what the best options are for what you need to do. JR JR (Steven) Imler CA Senior Software Engineer Tel: +1 703 708 3479 Fax: +1 703 708 3267 [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 02:42 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Ann, You shouldn't have any trouble using virtual tape with VM or VM:Tape. We use it here, primarily for VM:Backup and VM:Spool. VM:Spool uses SPXTAPE under the covers. I'm sure DDR will work fine, too. One phase of our DR process mounts virtual tapes as FOREIGN on another VM system, and it works fine. My only question is, if your virtual tapes are in a VTS, how will you get them to the DR site? In our case, the VTS is physically at the DR site, and the production system has a channel extension connection to it. A peer-to-peer VTS might also be an option. Dennis O'Brien No government deprives its citizens of rights without asserting that its actions are reasonable and necessary for high-sounding reasons such as public safety. A right that can be regulated is no right at all, only a temporary privilege dependent upon the good will of the very government officials that such right is designed to constrain. -- Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, attorneys for Gun Owners of America -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 14:56 To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: [IBMVM] Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment It's probably me that is confused. I have been told VM will have virtual tape but no native tape. They also have used the term 'backend tape'. I obviously have more to learn. -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Duerbusch Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:14 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment Someone there may be getting confused. The IBM DS8300 is a virtual tape system. It can work standalone as a disk based VTS or, in conjunction with the robotics side to make it a tape based VTS system (with a very large disk cache). Then, there is the IBM TS1120. These are real tape drives (not virtual). So, if your VM system can get access to your IBM TS1120 drives, just backup to them for off site storage. If you can only get access to the virtual tapes, then backup to a virtual tape and, on a system that has access to the IBM TS1120, do a tape copy from the virtual tape located in the IBM DS8300 to a real tape mounted in the IBM TS1120. The IBM TS1120 drives support hardware encryption. That is great. However, in a disaster recovery situation, it may not be so great. Until you get the disaster recovery tested with encryption, you may want to create your VM recovery tapes, without encryption enabled. With the VTS, you do have to execute some code to tell the VTS what tape you want. VMTAPE should be able to handle this. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting Law of Cat Obstruction A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic. Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3/24/2008 1:41 PM We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. *
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
The existing spool, not including dump space, volumes would remain in place on their current volumes. I do not think that, if there were no existing dumps, that relocating those two disks to different slots would be a problem. The system did not even whimper when it came up minus the first of the dump disks a short while ago. It happily allocated both dump files on the remaining disk. The operators did not notice any messages, much less have to respond to any, when the system was IPLed minus the disk. I noticed that it was missing the next day when I entered a Q ALLOC SPOOL command. It has since been IPLed with the disk present, and there was nothing out of the ordinary during the system start up. Regards, Richard Schuh -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stephen Frazier Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:51 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Adding Spool Volumes You can not change the slots on spool volumes. From what you say slots 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,16,17 contain your spool. You must leave those as they are. You can add more spool volumes at any slots you wish. You may move any other volumes to any other slots you want to. Schuh, Richard wrote: My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that changing the slot numbers for page is no problem, and I cannot think of a good reason for the system to care about the placement of T-disk, but what about the Dump? It is a part of Spool, but it gets reallocated at IPL. Is there anything that would break if the dump disks moved from slots 16 and 17 to 31 and 32? Slots Use 1-20 Spool 21-30 Reserved 31-32 Dump 33-54 Page 55-64 Reserved 65T-disk Regards, Richard Schuh -- Stephen Frazier Information Technology Unit Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3400 Martin Luther King Oklahoma City, Ok, 73111-4298 Tel.: (405) 425-2549 Fax: (405) 425-2554 Pager: (405) 690-1828 email: stevef%doc.state.ok.us
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
Losing dumps would not be a problem. If there were any, I would log on to OPERATNS and transfer them to disk before the shutdown. Regards, Richard Schuh From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of O'Brien, Dennis L Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:43 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Adding Spool Volumes Richard, You could lose any existing CP dump files that are still in SPOOL when you reallocate. AFAIK, VMDUMP files go on regular SPOOL volumes, so they shouldn't be affected. If the existing dump volumes are becoming regular SPOOL volumes, with the same volsers and slots, I would expect existing dumps to be intact. If you keep your dump volsers the same, but move them to new slots, you'll lose the pointers to the dump files. Just make sure you SPXTAPE or DUMPLOAD existing dumps before you shut down, and you'll be fine. Dennis O'Brien No government deprives its citizens of rights without asserting that its actions are reasonable and necessary for high-sounding reasons such as public safety. A right that can be regulated is no right at all, only a temporary privilege dependent upon the good will of the very government officials that such right is designed to constrain. -- Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, attorneys for Gun Owners of America From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schuh, Richard Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 14:13 To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: [IBMVM] Adding Spool Volumes My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that changing the slot numbers for page is no problem, and I cannot think of a good reason for the system to care about the placement of T-disk, but what about the Dump? It is a part of Spool, but it gets reallocated at IPL. Is there anything that would break if the dump disks moved from slots 16 and 17 to 31 and 32? Slots Use 1-20 Spool 21-30 Reserved 31-32 Dump 33-54 Page 55-64 Reserved 65T-disk Regards, Richard Schuh
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Backend tape usually refers to the tape drives that are assigned and dedicated to a tape based VTS system. So those tape drives that are dedicated to the VTS, can't be touched by any other method. They are not attached to the mainframe, but attached to the VTS. So, if you are going to create disaster recovery tapes, there needs to be, somewhere, mainframe attached tape drives. Then you just do a tape (virtual tape) to tape (real tape) copy. We are going to be doing the same thing, but only with the older IBM 3494 B10. We had to buy 4 tape drives for the B10, and then we bought another two drives (IBM TS1120) for offsite backups with encryption. We backup to the VTS, and when it is time to create off site tapes, tape to tape copies and stack a whole lot of files on a TS1120 cart G. We didn't need the capacity of the TS1120, but the encryption was a big selling point. I don't have a tape manager on VM. So I plan on defining a range of volsers that are not in our DYNAM/T catalog for use by VM. We can mount tape VM0001 which will always be the current DDR copy of 520RES. VM0002 is always the current copy of 520W01, etc. Then, when it is time to create the off site backups, have VSE mount VM0001 and copy to a TS1120 scratch tape as file 1. Copy VM0002 to the same tape as file 2, etc. I'm not sure if I will put the standalone utilities as file 1 or keep it on a separate tape(s). Once all of this is defined, I'll bring up another LPAR and do a trial disaster recovery restore... Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting Law of Cat Obstruction A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic. Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3/24/2008 4:55 PM It's probably me that is confused. I have been told VM will have virtual tape but no native tape. They also have used the term 'backend tape'. I obviously have more to learn. -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Duerbusch Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:14 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment Someone there may be getting confused. The IBM DS8300 is a virtual tape system. It can work standalone as a disk based VTS or, in conjunction with the robotics side to make it a tape based VTS system (with a very large disk cache). Then, there is the IBM TS1120. These are real tape drives (not virtual). So, if your VM system can get access to your IBM TS1120 drives, just backup to them for off site storage. If you can only get access to the virtual tapes, then backup to a virtual tape and, on a system that has access to the IBM TS1120, do a tape copy from the virtual tape located in the IBM DS8300 to a real tape mounted in the IBM TS1120. The IBM TS1120 drives support hardware encryption. That is great. However, in a disaster recovery situation, it may not be so great. Until you get the disaster recovery tested with encryption, you may want to create your VM recovery tapes, without encryption enabled. With the VTS, you do have to execute some code to tell the VTS what tape you want. VMTAPE should be able to handle this. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting Law of Cat Obstruction A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic.
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Thanks. I was hoping to VMTAPE mount the maintenance tapes to the other VM systems as FOREIGN tapes. And yes, there will be a VTS at the remote DR site. -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of O'Brien, Dennis L Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:06 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment Ann, You shouldn't have any trouble using virtual tape with VM or VM:Tape. We use it here, primarily for VM:Backup and VM:Spool. VM:Spool uses SPXTAPE under the covers. I'm sure DDR will work fine, too. One phase of our DR process mounts virtual tapes as FOREIGN on another VM system, and it works fine. My only question is, if your virtual tapes are in a VTS, how will you get them to the DR site? In our case, the VTS is physically at the DR site, and the production system has a channel extension connection to it. A peer-to-peer VTS might also be an option. Dennis O'Brien No government deprives its citizens of rights without asserting that its actions are reasonable and necessary for high-sounding reasons such as public safety. A right that can be regulated is no right at all, only a temporary privilege dependent upon the good will of the very government officials that such right is designed to constrain. -- Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, attorneys for Gun Owners of America -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 14:56 To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: [IBMVM] Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment It's probably me that is confused. I have been told VM will have virtual tape but no native tape. They also have used the term 'backend tape'. I obviously have more to learn. -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Duerbusch Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:14 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment Someone there may be getting confused. The IBM DS8300 is a virtual tape system. It can work standalone as a disk based VTS or, in conjunction with the robotics side to make it a tape based VTS system (with a very large disk cache). Then, there is the IBM TS1120. These are real tape drives (not virtual). So, if your VM system can get access to your IBM TS1120 drives, just backup to them for off site storage. If you can only get access to the virtual tapes, then backup to a virtual tape and, on a system that has access to the IBM TS1120, do a tape copy from the virtual tape located in the IBM DS8300 to a real tape mounted in the IBM TS1120. The IBM TS1120 drives support hardware encryption. That is great. However, in a disaster recovery situation, it may not be so great. Until you get the disaster recovery tested with encryption, you may want to create your VM recovery tapes, without encryption enabled. With the VTS, you do have to execute some code to tell the VTS what tape you want. VMTAPE should be able to handle this. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting Law of Cat Obstruction A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic. Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3/24/2008 1:41 PM We are running zVM 5.2 and currently still have manual 3490 tape drives. We may soon be getting an IBM DS8300 (shared with zOS) with TS1120 virtual tape. We have 5 VM systems with separate VMTAPE catalogs. They currently do not have any native physical tape drives planned for the VM systems. We normally do maintenance on 1 VM system and use DDR and SPXTAPE to propogate to the other VM systems. Is anyone familiar with using virtual tape with DDR and SPXTAPE? Can I just VMTAPE mount the virtual tape as a FOREIGN tape and be able to do DDR restore and/or SPXTAPE load? I am also wondering about how to do SPXTAPE's for DR. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Ann Smith Mainframe Systems Support -zVM and zLinux Support Integrated Technology Delivery IBM Global Service Integrated Operations At The Hartford Work phone: 860-547-6110 Pager: 800-204-6367 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * This communication, including attachments, is for the exclusive use of addressee and may contain proprietary, confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, disclosure, dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this communication and destroy all copies. * * This communication, including
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
OK, the fact that one time there were no files on or partly on the disk in slot 16 when you IPLed with out it does not mean that there will not be the next time. As you have the disks at 16 and 17 marked for dump storage nothing else should be on them. If you are willing to lose all the dumps on the spool you can probably get away with changing their slots. If the regular spool space gets full and there is free space on the dump reserved space then VM will use that space. Also if you run out of dump reserved space and VM needs to allocate more space for a dump it will use any spool space. It sounds like you try to keep lots of extra spool space on your system. That is good if you can afford it. If you can keep your dumps and ordinary spool files separate that is helpful. Schuh, Richard wrote: The existing spool, not including dump space, volumes would remain in place on their current volumes. I do not think that, if there were no existing dumps, that relocating those two disks to different slots would be a problem. The system did not even whimper when it came up minus the first of the dump disks a short while ago. It happily allocated both dump files on the remaining disk. The operators did not notice any messages, much less have to respond to any, when the system was IPLed minus the disk. I noticed that it was missing the next day when I entered a Q ALLOC SPOOL command. It has since been IPLed with the disk present, and there was nothing out of the ordinary during the system start up. Regards, Richard Schuh -- Stephen Frazier Information Technology Unit Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3400 Martin Luther King Oklahoma City, Ok, 73111-4298 Tel.: (405) 425-2549 Fax: (405) 425-2554 Pager: (405) 690-1828 email: stevef%doc.state.ok.us
Re: Question about virtual tape in a zVM environment
Have you considered how you will get data from the local VTS to the remote VTS? Smith, Ann (ISD, IT) wrote: Thanks. I was hoping to VMTAPE mount the maintenance tapes to the other VM systems as FOREIGN tapes. And yes, there will be a VTS at the remote DR site. -- Stephen Frazier Information Technology Unit Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3400 Martin Luther King Oklahoma City, Ok, 73111-4298 Tel.: (405) 425-2549 Fax: (405) 425-2554 Pager: (405) 690-1828 email: stevef%doc.state.ok.us
Re: Adding Spool Volumes
Richard, Dump space isn't allocated as a static amount - it changes over time. And there's a limit (I don't recall what) on how many chunks it can be allocated in. Before I started doing this (years ago) I had situations where regular spool space became too fragmented to allocate dumps. That's when I dedicated DUMP space so I didn't have to worry about fragmentation causing me to lose dumps from those rare but painful CP abends. I chose page volumes because usually the amount of page space you need (when VM's were small but numerous, prior to zLinux) was roughly proportional to the amount of dump space you'd need, and also I/O to dump areas wouldn't interfere with paging I/O (it's only used when CP is abending, right?). 3390mod9's made it even easier because who's gonna miss 10% per page volume? Sorry if two extra spool volumes (seven, counting the reserved slots you're planning to use) won't make enough difference. How about moving your TDISK volume up a ways, sliding PAGE slots up, and reuse lower page slots as spool? Page and TDISK are easy to move across IPL's. Dumps can be processed out of the spool/dump areas, and you can SET DUMP OFF temporarily while doing necessary moves. Best regards, Mark Schuh, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: The IBM To z/VM OperatingIBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU System cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU Subject Re: Adding Spool Volumes 03/24/2008 04:52 PM Please respond to The IBM z/VM Operating System [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU Still wouldn't be enough in the sequence. Adding those 2 slots would still leave me 3 short. Other than that, I really don't see the point. With today's disk architecture, that type of distinction is perhaps meaningless. Besides, the space is reserved regardless of where it resides. Regards, Richard Schuh -Original Message- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Wheeler Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 2:20 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: Adding Spool Volumes Richard, I allocate the first 1000 cylinders of each of my (3390-9) page volumes as SPOL, then mark it as DUMP space in SYSTEM CONFIG. That would free up your dedicated DUMP volumes, which could be redeployed as spool. Best regards, Mark L. Wheeler IT Infrastructure, 3M Center B224-4N-20, St Paul MN 55144 Tel: (651) 733-4355, Fax: (651) 736-7689 mlwheeler at mmm.com -- I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go. Rachel Joy Scott Schuh, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: The IBM To z/VM Operating IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU System cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU Subject Adding Spool Volumes 03/24/2008 04:13 PM Please respond to The IBM z/VM Operating System [EMAIL PROTECTED] ARK.EDU My current CP Owned list looks like this: Slots Use 1-10 Spool 11-15 Reserved 16-17 Dump 18-39 Page 40T-Disk 41-50 Reserved I need to double the spool space for upcoming events (z/TPF dumps). I know that I can use slots 11-15 and 5 slots from the 41-50 range. I would rather keep my Spool space in one range. Would anything break if I changed it so that slots 1-20 are spool and everything else pushed down to higher slot numbers, as below? I know that
