Radoslaw Skorupka wrote: >BTW2: It's big pity IBM stopped providing real tape drives for z/OS.
That would be a pity if it were true. Fortunately, it's not true. Tape libraries, tape drives, and tape cartridges for z/OS (and for z/VSE, z/VM, and z/TPF) are all available and popular. IBM has stopped producing the lower performance "dumb" tape controllers that topped out at 4Gb/s FICON links and that had no staging/caching storage capabilities. IBM is focusing on the "smart" tape controller, a.k.a. VTS, available with physical tape libraries, tape drives, and tape cartridges that are better and faster than ever. That's progress, and that's a good thing. The IBM 3494-B16, the first generation smart controller, was generally available on June 27, 1997 -- nearly 21 years ago. The last "dumb" controller, the IBM 3592-C07, was withdrawn from marketing in most (all?) countries on June 17, 2016. IBM maintenance services for the 3592-C07 controller will be available for some time to come (no End of Service date announced). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
