So very true. And the concept of an "air-gap" backup has become a real issue and shows one of the problems with replication. And nothing is better for an "air-gap" backup than tape, including Virtual Tape.
The other point is that while dasd-management products (HSM, FDR/ABR, CA-Disk) are one of the biggest users, and together with backup-solutions like DFDSS and FDR account for the majority of tape usage there are other uses as well. I have seen some production sites where DB2 backups from the DB2 utility use as much tape (measured in Mb of data) as either one. Russell Witt -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel C. Ewing Sent: Tuesday, December 4, 2018 9:30 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Another IBM tape not for z/OS On 12/02/2018 07:55 PM, Rugen, Len wrote: > Batch tape should be dead, even if batch JCL still looks like tape is used. > One of my last SMS projects was to manage tape, redirecting almost all to SMS > disk. > > > Before employing any technique to convert all tape data sets to DASD, one should I hope first consider whether replacing a tape data set with a DASD data set is a reasonable act based on the application design. The one logical capability of a tape data set, even one using virtual tape, that is not normally associated with a DASD data set is the innate ability to continue to exist for hours, days, or even longer after a new data set with identical name has been created, depending on how tapes volumes are scratched. The use of tape could mean the application is depending on that retention as an implicit and essential part of recovery should programming errors or other disasters occur during application processing, especially if the problem is a subtle one that isn't caught immediately. Throwing out that capability without providing a suitable substitute is something you may live to regret. Joel C. Ewing -- Joel C. Ewing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
