We have a number of TSM server instances running under Linux on two mainframe systems. Neither system has z/VM installed; each Linux instance runs in a separate LPAR. We have a z9 system with two 5.5.4.0 TSM servers running under two Linux images. We have ten FCP attached tape drives (a mixture of 3592J and TS1120 drives). We use a separate device (in the IOCP sense of a device) for each drive.
We recently installed a z10 system with two 6.2.2.0 TSM server instances running under a single Linux image. We have no trouble sharing tape drives between the z10 Linux image and one of the z9 Linux images. We have, for example, run tests with one of the 6.2 instances acting as a library manager, the other 6.2 instance acting as a library manager client, and our 5.5.4.0 test server acting as a second library manager client. Sharing tape drives between the two z9 LPARs has so far been far more laborious and disruptive. When we have needed a tape drive on the test server we have historically removed the device (in the IOCP sense) from one LPAR and added it to the other LPAR. We have to quiesce all tape activity before doing this; I/O operations on other tape drives will frequently hang if a device is removed or added. Is it possible to make tape drive sharing between two LPARs on the same system work as smoothly as drive sharing between LPARs on different systems?
