We share between OS/390 and Windows TSM. The systems share the services of the library manager, the robot arm, and the inventory slots, but not the drives. That is, your drives must be dedicated to either one or the other. Also, your tape ranges-scratch pools must be dedicated.
The mainframe drives are Escon-attached, so there is a least 1 ESCON controller installed in the 3494, and the drives themselves must have the ESCON attachment feature. From the mainframe, both robot commands and data flow on the ESCON channels. The Windows drives are SCSI/fibre attached directly from the host to each drive. For Windows we had to install an Ethernet adapter in the 3494. Robot commands sent via TCP/IP over Ethernet to the 3494 Library Manager; data flows via SCSI over fibre directly to the drives. (You can, BTW, get a "converter" kit to change your drives from SCSI to ESCON or vice versa -which of course is a charge feature.) So what hardware you need will depend on where you are starting from. Have your local rep/business partner check and recheck carefully what features you need to order. The whole thing works great; each host "sees" the 3494 as a library that belongs to him, and is unaware of the other applications using it. We had the 3494 attached to mainframe only for a long time before adding Windows; and we have never had regrets about implementing the sharing, or had any problems caused by it. MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND how the 3494 uses category codes before you start. There is a VERY GOOD redbook - in fact that is about the ONLY documentation that I found to explain the library sharing. It's SG24-4632, "IBM Magstar Tape Products Family: A Practical Guide" -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Rupp, Vorarlberger Illwerke AG [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 10:34 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Sharing 3494 library between TSM and VM/ESA Hi everybody, I'm asking this for a collegue therefore I'm a bit vague ... Does anyone share a 3494 library between the open world (W2K or UNIX with TSM) and a mainframe (VM/ESA)? If this is technically possible what kind of hardware (3590 controller ...), software or organisational tasks (tape ranges ...) is required? Is there any kind of documentation available on the net? Thanks in advance for any information! Kind regards and greetings from Austria Thomas Rupp Vorarlberger Illwerke AG Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +43/5574/601-2583
