On Thursday, 12/05/2013 at 12:07 EST, Doug <[email protected]> wrote:
> That would be an interesting addition to SFS....

Like CP volumes, SFS disks are pre-formatted and so would not benefit from
thin provisioning.  (As mentioned, SFS already allows you to allocate more
space than actually exists.)  But DASD thin provisioning is really more
suited to VSE and MVS, where the VTOC indicates what parts of the volume
are unallocated.  Software on the host is capable of triggering the
control unit to reclaim the unused tracks, working with dataset scratch
exits.

You *could* play games where you only format the label of a user volume
that contain minidisks.  If your DASD vendor provides a CMS-based
solution, then DIRMAINT or other directory manager exits could be used to
trigger reclamation for DMDISK operations.   (I suppose the exit could
reach out to the controller API or SCIF to a Linux guest, if a Linux
implementation is available.)

So it's theoretically possible to take advantage of thin provisioning with
ECKD on z/VM, but that would mean that you are deleting minidisks in
quantities sufficient to make the effort worthwhile.

Alan Altmark

Senior Managing z/VM and Linux Consultant
IBM System Lab Services and Training
ibm.com/systems/services/labservices
office: 607.429.3323
mobile; 607.321.7556
[email protected]
IBM Endicott

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