Greetings and Merry Christmas to all! This thread is right on time for me, because I was just having this conversation with our IBM CEs.
Is anybody surprised the IBM3584 manual recommends to use Automatic cleaning? But that doesn't make it the best functionality. I personally like the TSM cleaning method over the Automatic one, because it is easy to query TSM to see how many cleaning tapes are installed, and how many cleanings they have left. So it is easy to just build it into the daily script the operators use when they checkin tapes to also look at the cleaning tapes and make sure we are OK. We are getting ready to deploy Servergraph, and are planning to set up alerts to let us know when cleaning tapes need to be replaced. When you need to change cleaning tapes, you can use the same checkin and checkout commands, albeit with different options, so you can make the scripts part of the Operator's menu they already use. No special training for them. With the IBM3584 Automatic method, you have to remember to go to the library panel or the IBM3584 Web Specialist periodically to see if your cleaning tapes are in good shape. To check in or out cleaning tapes requires a separate method, and can't be scripted. If your tapes all run out of cleanings, will anything automatically tell you that? It will show up on the Operator Panel, but in our shop, the Operators might go days without noticing a message on the library Operator Panel because they don't use it for anything; they just put tapes in the I/O station or take them out. Is there anything about TSM tape cleaning that you don't like? Does it fail to work? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Sr. System Administrator - Storage Sisters of Mercy Health System 3637 South Geyer Road St. Louis, MO. 63127 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: 314-364-3150, Cell: 314-486-2359 -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kauffman, Tom Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 8:03 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] IBM 3584 Tape Cleaning Use the library. We had a 3584 with 10 SCSI LTO-1 drives for 3 years, then upgraded to a new library with 10 (now 16) LTO-2 drives. We put in 4 cleaning tapes with the initial tape load on the first library. Six years later, and ONE cleaning tape shows 11 mounts. And all 11 were manually instigated in the first year of the first library, to check out drives after maintenance in the early versions of the LTO-1 microcode. I've seen maybe 8 to 10 SCSI error messages indicating cleaning required over the years, and all have cleared by the time of the tape dismount (LTO was supposed to be self-cleaning; looks like it really is). Tom Kauffman NIBCO, Inc -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Larry Peifer Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 8:15 PM To: [email protected] Subject: IBM 3584 Tape Cleaning Those of you who have the IBM 3584 tape libraries - please weigh in on pros/cons of using either the Automatic Cleaning method of the host library or the Tape cleaning management method of the TSM server. We are configuring two 3584's to replace our four 3583 libraries. Our environment is TSM 5.3x server on AIX 5.3 with LTO2 drives and LTO2 tapes in the libraries with each library configured as it's own single partition. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email and any attachments are for the exclusive and confidential use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not read, distribute or take action in reliance upon this message. If you have received this in error, please notify us immediately by return email and promptly delete this message and its attachments from your computer system. We do not waive attorney-client or work product privilege by the transmission of this message.
