The last place I worked before retiring we had three different sysplex 
environments.  They all shared two TS7700 boxes.  I just did separate tape 
drive address ranges for each environment.  The storage team worked out how to 
segregate the tape volser information inside the TS7700s, that was outside of 
my area of work.

Yes, we did used AUTOSWITCH with in each of the environment.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of 
Jousma, David
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2025 7:28 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Autoswitch

Radoslaw, you said:  “Yes, autoswitch does not require MIM. However autoswitch 
will not work across sysplex boundaries.”

This is not correct with regards to TS7700 series tape libraries.   It does 
work across sysplex boundaries without additional software.   You are correct 
with regards to stand alone tape drives I believe.  Not sure how much of that 
is still around though.



Dave Jousma
Vice President | Director, Technology Engineering





From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of 
Radoslaw Skorupka <[email protected]>
Date: Friday, May 30, 2025 at 8:12 AM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Autoswitch



W dniu 29.05.2025 o 13:58, Jousma, David pisze:

> AUTOSWITCH does NOT require GRS/MIM, etc to work inside or outside the 
> sysplex any longer.  We have same tape drives online to 5 different sysplexes.



Again: it is NOT ABOUT GRS/MIM.

Yes, autoswitch does not require MIM. However autoswitch will not work

across sysplex boundaries.

However there are software products which allow it.

Product names are IBM ATAM (Automated Tape Allocation Manager) and CA-MIA.

Both are licensed (and paid) products.





And still, having dozens of virtual drives allow user to assign the

drives statically and forget about the issue.







--

Radoslaw Skorupka

Lodz, Poland









> You’ll see messages such as this when a drive is in use by systems 
> outside the current sysplex/system

>

> IEF292I UNIT 211E IS ASSIGNED TO A FOREIGN HOST

> IEF294I UNIT 211E IS NO LONGER ASSIGNED TO A FOREIGN HOST

>

> However, if you want to share the library between two separate environments, 
> you need to update DEVSUP00 in all environments to assign unique media types 
> so that the library can keep the tapes separate between both 
> mono-plexes/sysplexes.  If you do not, you will run into problems because 
> your tape catalog will get out of sync very quickly, and you may end up 
> scratching, overwriting tapes from each environment.  You’ll need to enter 
> scratch tapes separately into each environment to get the correct media type 
> assigned to them.

>

> MEDIA1=

> MEDIA2=

> MEDIA3=

> ERROR=

> PRIVATE=

>

> Dave Jousma

> Vice President | Director, Technology Engineering



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