Because STK's Virtual Tape product (VSM) is a *hardware*
solution (as opposed to a software solution), you can use these drives from VM
systems. Of course you have to give your VM system(s) access to the "tape
drives".
The problem you have is how do you get the command issued
on z/OS to tell the VSM to mount a tape on a specific tape drive when you need
it on your VM system(s). (Nicely sharing the drives may also be an issue ... but
it sounds like you are already sharing your tape drives between/among z/OS and
z/VM in you current STK configuration.)
We have several customers who use VM:Tape to allocate the
STK VSM tape drives and treat them as manual (NONARM) tape mounts. The
VM:Tape MOUNT requests are intercepted by VM:Operator which sends the
appropriate STK MOUNT (and DISMOUNT) request to z/OS to get a SCRATCH tape, or
mount a specific volume for use on VM.
JR (Steven)
Imler
CA
Senior Software Engineer
Tel: +1 703 708
3479
Fax: +1 703 708
3267
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Moore, Terry A.
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 01:52 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: VM for DB2 Backups
Our data center is eliminating an STK tape silo and
implementing STK's Virtual Tape product. They tell me that there is no
interface from VM for STK Virtual Tape. The data center manager wants to
know if we could take DB2/VM backups from MVS (shared dasd environment).
Our DBA has suggested the alternate solution (below) for DB2/VM
backups.
Has anyone got experience with doing DB2/VM backups in such an environment or care to comment on either proposed solution?
Terry A. Moore
Proj Mgr - IT Infrastructure
Terry,Here is the problem. We have several VM for DB2 database servers. Currently they use vmbackup to take database and log backups using the tape silo. The tape silo is being replaced by a virtual tape machine(from STK). VM cannot talk to the virtual tape machine so utilizing that is not an option. My thoughts currently are to take a weekly backup of all the DB2 for VM database machines data disk utilizing a FAT tape(s) and throughout the week take log backups for the database machines that do online updating. I am still trying to test this scenario to make sure it will work.Currently, we use a product called VM:DBA from CA that allows us to automate all the backups so no operator intervention is required. In order to use FAT tape(s) to backup all the databases at one time, I will create a vmbackup template that will have all the databases data disks and then it will be submitted via an exec by VM:DBA after all the databases have been brought down. The problem here is VM:DBA will not be able to track when the backups are done and keep track of the volume serial numbers use in the backup process so the restore process will now have to a more manual process outside of the VM:DBA product. Also, a routine to bring the databases back online after the backup is done will need to created.
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