May I ask a couple "naive" and slightly impolite questions here? Do Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Symantec, VMware, SAS, or Red Hat (as examples) ship you their software products and updates on tape cartridges? I presume your organization is using at least one software product from at least one of these vendors. Somehow your organization has been able to accept software product delivery on CDs, DVDs, and/or electronically...and has for literally decades. The CD format is about 3 decades old as an available format, and CDs utterly dominated software distribution when vendors typically ended diskette (floppy disk) distribution.
Have you looked into what your colleagues have been doing for the past 20+ years? How are the other parts of your organization coping? They are, somehow, and they have been for literally decades. Maybe somebody could point out that fact? [I don't know who wrote this] wrote: >DVD’s/CDROMS have an affinity to getting lost and you >cannot put a sticker on it (on the sleeve yes) but >not on the physical device. No, that's just not correct. You *can* put stickers on CDs and DVDs! Avery is among the many vendors that sell them. See here for example: https://www.avery.com/products/labels/usage/cd-~-dvd-labels-~-inserts You can even run CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc labels through laser and inkjet printers. In fact, there are some inkjet printers that can print *directly* onto discs. Then you don't even have to attach labels! See here for example: https://epson.com/direct-cd-dvd-printing You can even buy genuine Sharpie brand pens to write directly on discs: https://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Permanent-Markers-Black-37035PP/dp/B000PXJ26A ....I'm utterly mystified. Yes, OK, you have to use a DVD reader instead of a tape drive. There's a media change and a drive change...and so what? Media and drive changes are also nothing new since there have been multiple tape cartridge format changes in the past decades, and you're assuredly not using a 20+ year old parallel channel attached tape drive to read what IBM is sending today. IBM stopped shipping 7-track, 9-track, 3480, and 3490 tape cartridges a long, long time ago. *Hypothetically* you could probably hire a trusted intermediary firm, staffed only with citizens of Country X with security clearance level Y, to accept DVD or electronic delivery from IBM, write those products to tape cartridges, then ship you those tapes. (In armored cars?) I guess that'd "work." If you do pursue that Rube Goldberg method, just get in touch with IBM through official channels to make sure IBM is OK with the arrangement. This is copyrighted and licensed software, after all, so that approach would require IBM's permission. (And permission from other vendors if you're trying to do the same thing with their software products.) ....Or just find the people who are already dealing with every other vendor's software products, and do what they're doing and have been doing for decades. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM Z & LinuxONE, Multi-Geography E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
