What about them?
Seriously: it is good idea to communicate, not to write words. Excessive
brevity or riddles does not help the communication.
Yes, off-site backups are being done nowadays.
How?
At least two ways:
1. Remote VTS and replication. Available for all vendors solutions.
2. "Tapes in a suitcase". Available in IBM VTS, I'm not aware of any
other vendor.
In this case it is possible to export physical tapes, move them away and
insert into other VTS, then "unpack".
Both solutions can be used in parallel, however IMHO the first one is
much more popular.
BTW: Number 3: DFSMShsm and tape duplexing. It is possible to write
backups to two tapes. Both FICON-attached. In that case the distance is
somehow limited, even if DWDM is used (performance). Some special
features of the switch would help. However VTS replication provide
better features.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
W dniu 09.11.2025 o 16:15, Seymour J Metz pisze:
Off-site backups?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי
נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List<[email protected]> on behalf of Radoslaw
Skorupka<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2025 4:38 AM
To:[email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Ancient history: 3420s
External Message: Use Caution
Well, I'm simply too young to use reels. I started with OS/390, RMM and
cartridges. Manually operated. The only problem I could met was wrong
sticker (physical label) on the cart. :-)
However I use to teach the tapes and RMM, so I describe problems which
are gone thank to RMM, labels, etc.
BTW: nowadays any non-virtual tape is becoming as ancient as
non-emulated ECKD disk drive.
(disclaimer: tape drives at VT backend does not count)
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
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