I was looking only at your past point: ".. convert each field to ASCII and 
appropriate
numeric formats." 

How would you know where each field was and what it was? Without the orignal 
programs, I'd say just about impossible.  



-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of 
Ron Hawkins
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 9:31 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Accessing MF Data From Distributed Systems

Hal I have to agree.

The data written to the ATL on FICON channels will be CKD structure which is
encapsulated into SCSI FBA at some point between the FICON interface and
disk buffer. It's all SCSI after that.

To read the data on the mainframe tapes from Fibre Channel the ATL vendor
would likely have to provide an API that understands the proprietary
encapsulation process in order to read the SCSI blocks, strip of the
wrappers and reassemble the CKD blocks. Once the block is assembled it would
have to be passed to another procedure to process the block based on its
format (FB, VB, VBS. Etc), and convert each field to ASCII and appropriate
numeric formats.

The short answer is I think they are screwed unless they export the tapes to
another compatible ATL and read them with FICON.

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> Hal Merritt
> Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 1:14 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [IBM-MAIN] Accessing MF Data From Distributed Systems
> 
> Short answer: most likely no.
> 
> You might could 'access' the data, but would have little hope of making
any
> sense of it. I'd take a look at a contingency contract with a service
> provider.
> 
> And test the service, of course.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of
> Dazzo, Matt
> Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 2:08 PM
> To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Accessing MF Data From Distributed Systems
> 
> Luckily this required info is not for our shop,  another MF is biting the
dust
> here in the north east. The powers that be are concerned about accessing
data
> that resides in a VTS/ATL device once the plug is pulled on the MF, should
> there be a need to. Is there any software/hardware product that provides
the
> capability to access data in that device from a distributed platform, most
> likely HP or Linux. That's all the info I have for now.
> 
> Anybody been there, done that?
> 
> Thanks Matt
> 
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