Dean, A couple more alternatives, some better than others.
Since it's leased, I don't know if this would even be feasible: sticking with the 3592-C07 controller but going to third party maintenance. IDK how long parts will be available for them. Will IBM offer some kind of extended (read: for an extra fee) support for the C07 controllers? That'll depend on parts availability as well. We got it for our C06s while we were migrating off the local physical tape. Installing a small VTS at your primary site, and swinging the (presumably) 3584 library behind the VTS. The VTS would then become in essence a large cache for the tape library. This is one of the options we looked at when our 3592-C06 controllers fell off maintenance - because we couldn't find and C07s to replace them with. We ended up installing a larger VTS at the local site and a smaller one at our secondary location, replicating between them, but we did put a 3584 library on the back end of the remote one so we still have data going to tape for long term archival. Rex -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Nai, Dean Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 5:39 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [External] Re: 3592-E07 All good info. Currently we backup everything on 3592 nightly and the next morning they go off site for DR purposes, circa 1980’s Dean Nai On 1/22/20, 3:15 AM, "IBM Mainframe Discussion List on behalf of Timothy Sipples" <[email protected] on behalf of [email protected]> wrote: > EXTERNAL: Do not open attachments or click on links unless you recognize and > trust the sender. > >Dean Nai wrote: >>We have a 3592-E07 and our leasing company is telling us the >>following. Anyone have any thoughts? We really don’t have the funding >>for a mirrored VTS and if it’s not mirrored then we lose our DR plan. > >How are you set up today? For example, do you simply take periodic >backups to physical tape then ship the tapes to your DR site? It's not >yet clear to me whether and why you necessarily need a mirrored VTS. > >>From leasing company. >>The first item to be withdrawn from service will be the 3592-C07 at >>the end of 2020. The C07 is the controller for the tape drives and is >>required for z/OS or z/VM to communicate with the >>3592-E07 drives. >>IBM has no direct attach tape products for z/OS, z/VM or zVSE. > >Just to editorialize here, IBM has not offered "direct attach tape >products" for those operating systems (or for z/TPF) for a LONG time. >There must be a controller in the connection path, either a "smart" or "dumb" >one, in order for z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE, and/or z/TPF to use the drives. >(Linux is the exception and can work with the drives either way.) > >IBM maintenance for the last in the line of "dumb" tape controllers, >the 3592-C07, is ending at the end of 2020. > >>The best option is to go with a VTS and locate a 2nd VTS at your DR >>site with replication between the two sites. There is also the option >>to have an IBM VTS with access to tape drives in a 3584 and then send >>those tapes offsite. To be able to use those tapes for DR you would >>need another IBM VTS at you DR location. > >Before suggesting "the" answer, another relevant capability is cloud >object storage. There are a couple software products for z/OS that >equip z/OS to use cloud object storage -- whether on premises, off >premises (public cloud), or both -- as virtual tape. IBM Cloud Tape >Connector for z/OS is one such example. > >The basic approach with Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS is that you'd run >your backups pretty much per normal, but the target(s) would be any >cloud object storage that supports IBM Cloud Object Storage S3 >protocol, Amazon S3, Hitachi HCP protocol, or EMC Elastic Cloud Service >Protocol. These storage pools could be public, private, or both. >Storage pools can be backed by any sort of media, including physical >tape. Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS can encrypt data before it's saved >to cloud object storage, and you really ought to do that. For example, >you might decide to have one private pool of cloud object storage at >your DR site and also buy a subscription to IBM Cloud Object Storage as >another, duplicate pool. (IBM then further duplicates your data across >IBM's multiple sites. Where and how many depends on your subscription.) >Then, in a disaster, you'd need to get at least one basic z/OS instance >up and running, with Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS fired up, connect to >whichever cloud object storage pool has survived and is reachable, >restore, and you're back in business to the last good backup point. In >a dire emergency the first two steps would typically start from USB media at >the HMC these days. > >Anyway, that's the "cloud" way to do things, and there's a lot of merit >in it. It's also combinable with VTS. For example, perhaps you take >backups to both public cloud object storage (encrypted of course) and >to remote (DR >site) VTS, with no local VTS. There's a lot of flexibility in all of >this, including economic flexibility, but I'd like to understand a >little more before backing a specific alternative. > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >--------------------------------- >Timothy Sipples >IT Architect Executive, Digital Asset & Other Industry Solutions, IBM Z >& LinuxONE >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >--------------------------------- > >E-Mail: [email protected] > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send >email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from disclosure and may be legally privileged. 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