Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
We've had the 3494 for about 5-year and we do have the HA option installed. It is definitely worth it. We had, at different times, a library manager failure and an accessor failure [bearing going out, etc.], but the library just kept going on without interruptions and the CE could work on the accessor failure and library manager failure without downtime. We do not have the dual active accessor code enabled because we do not see the need for it just yet; if our tape mounts/demounts increase dramatically we may purchase that option. However, during a full library inventory, both accessors become active at the same time, reducing our 8-frame library inventory time in half. Mahesh [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/08/2005 21:54:27 I am a little behind in reading my mail. But we have an early ship model of the 3494 (SN 10010) and the robot shaft and all the bearings finally gave out. We had this library since the summer of 1993. Over a 5 day period, IBM replace the shaft, x cable, y cable,1 gripper, accessor power supply and all the bearings on the bottom of the robot. We experience about 4 days of scatter outages. It may be time to consider the H1A options. We had every tape specialist in town going thru our shop during those days. The shaft on the early robots was made of machine piece of stainless steel. The replacement was some black Teflon cover metal shaft. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Bronder Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:19 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? Like Wanda and Bob, we've had our 3494 for coming up on 7 years now. In that time, though, we've never had a robot failure, nor have we had to run in manual mode. We have the dual-gripper option, though, and that's saved us several times when we've had gripper failures. For example, the time the gripper was flinging tapes around inside the library. The bad gripper had to be manually disabled since the LM thought it was fine. But the second gripper kept us in automated mode. Another reason for the HA1 option, though, is performance. If you have a really large 3494 (pushing 16 frames), dual robots apparently can be a big boost to mount service times. Or so says the IBM tape Top Gun who was here over the weekend helping us expand our 3494. Fortunately, our library isn't that big (and I don't expect it to ever get that big). =Dave Prather, Wanda wrote: Ditto. Our 3494 is 7 years old now. Same experience with failures (1-2 a year). Same experience waiting for the plane to arrive with parts! We also just put it in manual mode and tough it out until the repairs are done.
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
I am a little behind in reading my mail. But we have an early ship model of the 3494 (SN 10010) and the robot shaft and all the bearings finally gave out. We had this library since the summer of 1993. Over a 5 day period, IBM replace the shaft, x cable, y cable,1 gripper, accessor power supply and all the bearings on the bottom of the robot. We experience about 4 days of scatter outages. It may be time to consider the H1A options. We had every tape specialist in town going thru our shop during those days. The shaft on the early robots was made of machine piece of stainless steel. The replacement was some black Teflon cover metal shaft. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Bronder Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:19 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? Like Wanda and Bob, we've had our 3494 for coming up on 7 years now. In that time, though, we've never had a robot failure, nor have we had to run in manual mode. We have the dual-gripper option, though, and that's saved us several times when we've had gripper failures. For example, the time the gripper was flinging tapes around inside the library. The bad gripper had to be manually disabled since the LM thought it was fine. But the second gripper kept us in automated mode. Another reason for the HA1 option, though, is performance. If you have a really large 3494 (pushing 16 frames), dual robots apparently can be a big boost to mount service times. Or so says the IBM tape Top Gun who was here over the weekend helping us expand our 3494. Fortunately, our library isn't that big (and I don't expect it to ever get that big). =Dave Prather, Wanda wrote: Ditto. Our 3494 is 7 years old now. Same experience with failures (1-2 a year). Same experience waiting for the plane to arrive with parts! We also just put it in manual mode and tough it out until the repairs are done.
3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
Do you have the HA1 high availability option on your 3494 or 3584 library? If you have HA1, do you think it was worth the money? How often has your robot failed? We have a couple 3494 libraries with the HA1 option. In 3-4 years of service the spare robot only was needed a couple times.As we think about getting another library we're asking ourselves if it's worth the price and floor space. At first we said it wasn't worth it . . . .but, it's insurance. What would the consequences have been for the couple times we've used it and if it wasn't available? The obvious operations in TSM would fail - this is bad, but not a disaster. No production system is down because of this. The worse thing would probably be restores, if any were needed, would fail. Interested in your thoughts . . . . . Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
If the robot is broken and you would really badly need a restore you could always load the tapes by hand right? Otto Schakenbos System Administrator TEL: +49-7151/502 8468 FAX: +49-7151/502 8489 MOBILE: +49-172/7102715 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corporate IT Europe Teleflex Holding GmbH Fronackerstrasse 33-35 71332 Waiblingen GERMANY Richard Rhodes wrote: Do you have the HA1 high availability option on your 3494 or 3584 library? If you have HA1, do you think it was worth the money? How often has your robot failed? We have a couple 3494 libraries with the HA1 option. In 3-4 years of service the spare robot only was needed a couple times.As we think about getting another library we're asking ourselves if it's worth the price and floor space. At first we said it wasn't worth it . . . .but, it's insurance. What would the consequences have been for the couple times we've used it and if it wasn't available? The obvious operations in TSM would fail - this is bad, but not a disaster. No production system is down because of this. The worse thing would probably be restores, if any were needed, would fail. Interested in your thoughts . . . . . Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
If the robot is out of service, you can place the library in manual mode. Then mount messages are displayed on each tape drive. Lists to volser number of the tape as well as the location within the library where that tape can be found. You just open all the doors and have your operator(s) play tape-apeprotein robot You can also display the mount messages on the library manager console on the back of the L-frame. I think there's a section in the 3494 operator's guide that explains how to function in manual mode. If these libraries are in an un-attended data center, then you'll probably be better off buying the insurance. Bill Boyer Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield - ?? -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Rhodes Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 8:54 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? Do you have the HA1 high availability option on your 3494 or 3584 library? If you have HA1, do you think it was worth the money? How often has your robot failed? We have a couple 3494 libraries with the HA1 option. In 3-4 years of service the spare robot only was needed a couple times.As we think about getting another library we're asking ourselves if it's worth the price and floor space. At first we said it wasn't worth it . . . .but, it's insurance. What would the consequences have been for the couple times we've used it and if it wasn't available? The obvious operations in TSM would fail - this is bad, but not a disaster. No production system is down because of this. The worse thing would probably be restores, if any were needed, would fail. Interested in your thoughts . . . . . Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
Rick - I guess it depends upon whether your needs could survive an outage for some hours... On our 3494, I would say that the accessor fails about once every two years or so, sometimes a worn-out motor, sometimes an over-flexed cable. The last time was a couple of weeks ago: from service call to repair time was about 8.5 hours, most of that awaiting a part to arrive and then a free CE to install it. A full concept of high availability would include stocking spare parts on site - as it is too often the case that parts for IBM equipment are available only in another state. Richard Sims
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 08:54:20AM -0400, Richard Rhodes wrote: Do you have the HA1 high availability option on your 3494 or 3584 library? If you have HA1, do you think it was worth the money? How often has your robot failed? We have a couple 3494 libraries with the HA1 option. In 3-4 years of service the spare robot only was needed a couple times.As we think about getting another library we're asking ourselves if it's worth the price and floor space. At first we said it wasn't worth it . . . .but, it's insurance. What would the consequences have been for the couple times we've used it and if it wasn't available? The obvious operations in TSM would fail - this is bad, but not a disaster. No production system is down because of this. The worse thing would probably be restores, if any were needed, would fail. Interested in your thoughts . . . . . We have had a 3494 for over 6 years now, and in that time the robot has failed several times. (In its first week, it earned the name 'butter fingers' but we'll leave that story for another day). We do not have the HA option, although I admit it would be cool, I would probably like to have them set up in 'dual' mode. When the robot fails, I normally drive in, place the robot in Manual and take over, along with a few of our Operations staff. I admit it is pretty tough during collocated migrations! My only gripe is that with 3 or 4 3494's in town, IBM still refuses to stock any parts in our area. At least stock a few parts that fail the most, such as gripper assemblies, motors, and belts. A simple repair usually takes hours just driving to Bloomington, Peoria, or waiting for the plane to arrive. With all that, I don't think I could ever justify the expense of HA to management, especially in the day of cheap disk, that will soon replace my cool library. If we were doing lots of tape mounts during the day for lets say HSM operations, and robot response was more important, we would probably had invested in it several years ago. We just never made it there. Just my .05 (with inflation). Bob
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
Ditto. Our 3494 is 7 years old now. Same experience with failures (1-2 a year). Same experience waiting for the plane to arrive with parts! We also just put it in manual mode and tough it out until the repairs are done. Wanda Prather I/O, I/O, It's all about I/O -(me) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Booth - UIUC Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:17 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 08:54:20AM -0400, Richard Rhodes wrote: Do you have the HA1 high availability option on your 3494 or 3584 library? If you have HA1, do you think it was worth the money? How often has your robot failed? We have a couple 3494 libraries with the HA1 option. In 3-4 years of service the spare robot only was needed a couple times.As we think about getting another library we're asking ourselves if it's worth the price and floor space. At first we said it wasn't worth it . . . .but, it's insurance. What would the consequences have been for the couple times we've used it and if it wasn't available? The obvious operations in TSM would fail - this is bad, but not a disaster. No production system is down because of this. The worse thing would probably be restores, if any were needed, would fail. Interested in your thoughts . . . . . We have had a 3494 for over 6 years now, and in that time the robot has failed several times. (In its first week, it earned the name 'butter fingers' but we'll leave that story for another day). We do not have the HA option, although I admit it would be cool, I would probably like to have them set up in 'dual' mode. When the robot fails, I normally drive in, place the robot in Manual and take over, along with a few of our Operations staff. I admit it is pretty tough during collocated migrations! My only gripe is that with 3 or 4 3494's in town, IBM still refuses to stock any parts in our area. At least stock a few parts that fail the most, such as gripper assemblies, motors, and belts. A simple repair usually takes hours just driving to Bloomington, Peoria, or waiting for the plane to arrive. With all that, I don't think I could ever justify the expense of HA to management, especially in the day of cheap disk, that will soon replace my cool library. If we were doing lots of tape mounts during the day for lets say HSM operations, and robot response was more important, we would probably had invested in it several years ago. We just never made it there. Just my .05 (with inflation). Bob
Re: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
Like Wanda and Bob, we've had our 3494 for coming up on 7 years now. In that time, though, we've never had a robot failure, nor have we had to run in manual mode. We have the dual-gripper option, though, and that's saved us several times when we've had gripper failures. For example, the time the gripper was flinging tapes around inside the library. The bad gripper had to be manually disabled since the LM thought it was fine. But the second gripper kept us in automated mode. Another reason for the HA1 option, though, is performance. If you have a really large 3494 (pushing 16 frames), dual robots apparently can be a big boost to mount service times. Or so says the IBM tape Top Gun who was here over the weekend helping us expand our 3494. Fortunately, our library isn't that big (and I don't expect it to ever get that big). =Dave Prather, Wanda wrote: Ditto. Our 3494 is 7 years old now. Same experience with failures (1-2 a year). Same experience waiting for the plane to arrive with parts! We also just put it in manual mode and tough it out until the repairs are done. -- Hello World.David Bronder - Systems Admin Segmentation Fault ITS-SPA, Univ. of Iowa Core dumped, disk trashed, quota filled, soda warm. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
NEVER had to run in manual mode??? Never had the robotic fail??? You must be a lucky person, perhaps you should by a lottery ticket this week. ;-) We have had 4 3494 tape libraries for about 9 years. During that time, we have had probably a dozen mechanical failures on the robotics had 4 times when we had to run in Manual mode because the library was down for an extended period. Not ~too~ bad, considering that is across 4 libraries I guess. The last failure we had (last month), was the failure of an Arctic card in the PC in the library. That made it so the library would not even boot up so we couldn't even put it in manual mode. I attempted to reconfigure the library and devices on the TSM server to use them as manual devices, but couldn't get that to work because TSM would not let me change/delete/reconfigure the devicetypes because they were defined to Storagepools with data in them. Of course the card was not in stock in town and the library was down 27 hours while we waited for it to be flown in. The diskpools filled up, and backups failed till we got the library back up. I know some of you are thinking that I should have been able to use the drives in a manual mode, and so did I at the time. But try as I might, I couldn't get them to define in and change my STGPOOL configurations to use the manual devices. Ben -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Bronder Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:19 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? Like Wanda and Bob, we've had our 3494 for coming up on 7 years now. In that time, though, we've never had a robot failure, nor have we had to run in manual mode. We have the dual-gripper option, though, and that's saved us several times when we've had gripper failures. For example, the time the gripper was flinging tapes around inside the library. The bad gripper had to be manually disabled since the LM thought it was fine. But the second gripper kept us in automated mode. Another reason for the HA1 option, though, is performance. If you have a really large 3494 (pushing 16 frames), dual robots apparently can be a big boost to mount service times. Or so says the IBM tape Top Gun who was here over the weekend helping us expand our 3494. Fortunately, our library isn't that big (and I don't expect it to ever get that big). =Dave Prather, Wanda wrote: Ditto. Our 3494 is 7 years old now. Same experience with failures (1-2 a year). Same experience waiting for the plane to arrive with parts! We also just put it in manual mode and tough it out until the repairs are done. -- Hello World.David Bronder - Systems Admin Segmentation Fault ITS-SPA, Univ. of Iowa Core dumped, disk trashed, quota filled, soda warm. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
I know some of you are thinking that I should have been able to use the drives in a manual mode, and so did I at the time. But try as I might, I couldn't get them to define in and change my STGPOOL configurations to use the manual devices. We have a 3494. The last time we did a disaster recovery test our hotsite vendor gave use a group of 3590 tape drives without an automated library. We got this to work by defining a new manual library and updating the relevant device class to associate it with the new library. We did not make any changes in storage pool definitions.
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
You don't have to make any changes to TSM to run the 3494 in manual mode. That is a 3494 library setting. I'm not sure that you can define a drive in a 3494 as in a manual library (DEF LIBR LIBT=MANUAL). I think there's a chapter in the 3494 operator guide that explains manual mode. No changes are required on any of the attached hosts to the library when it's running in manual mode. Been a while since I've played with a 3494, but at another site we had one...connected to TSM on AIX and a zServer mainframe. In the 4-years I was there, the robot only went offline twice. Just switched to manual mode and got an aerobics workout! Bill Boyer Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield - ?? -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Denier Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 1:34 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? I know some of you are thinking that I should have been able to use the drives in a manual mode, and so did I at the time. But try as I might, I couldn't get them to define in and change my STGPOOL configurations to use the manual devices. We have a 3494. The last time we did a disaster recovery test our hotsite vendor gave use a group of 3590 tape drives without an automated library. We got this to work by defining a new manual library and updating the relevant device class to associate it with the new library. We did not make any changes in storage pool definitions.
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 01:34:16PM -0400, Thomas Denier wrote: I know some of you are thinking that I should have been able to use the drives in a manual mode, and so did I at the time. But try as I might, I couldn't get them to define in and change my STGPOOL configurations to use the manual devices. We have a 3494. The last time we did a disaster recovery test our hotsite vendor gave use a group of 3590 tape drives without an automated library. We got this to work by defining a new manual library and updating the relevant device class to associate it with the new library. We did not make any changes in storage pool definitions. You may also have to change the 3590 drive configuration (via the front panel) to something other than a E1A (or E1X). It may not work outside of the library When it is not communicating with the RS-422 interface (artic). bob
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
Well, the problem with that suggestion is that the front panel on the library was not working. The PC would not even boot up with the arctic card problem, so there was no way to change any of the library settings. I'll have to play around in our development environment a little more and see if some of the other suggestions work for next time around. Thx Ben -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Booth - UIUC Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 12:29 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 01:34:16PM -0400, Thomas Denier wrote: I know some of you are thinking that I should have been able to use the drives in a manual mode, and so did I at the time. But try as I might, I couldn't get them to define in and change my STGPOOL configurations to use the manual devices. We have a 3494. The last time we did a disaster recovery test our hotsite vendor gave use a group of 3590 tape drives without an automated library. We got this to work by defining a new manual library and updating the relevant device class to associate it with the new library. We did not make any changes in storage pool definitions. You may also have to change the 3590 drive configuration (via the front panel) to something other than a E1A (or E1X). It may not work outside of the library When it is not communicating with the RS-422 interface (artic). bob
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 01:07:14PM -0600, Ben Bullock wrote: Well, the problem with that suggestion is that the front panel on the library was not working. The PC would not even boot up with the arctic card problem, so there was no way to change any of the library settings. No, this is the front panel on the 3590 tape drive. It is configured via the maintenance menu. bob
Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it?
Ahh, I see, my misunderstanding... Another thing to check in our test area when I get the time. Thanks, Ben -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Booth - UIUC Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 1:26 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: 3494/3584 HA1 High Availability Option - is it worth it? On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 01:07:14PM -0600, Ben Bullock wrote: Well, the problem with that suggestion is that the front panel on the library was not working. The PC would not even boot up with the arctic card problem, so there was no way to change any of the library settings. No, this is the front panel on the 3590 tape drive. It is configured via the maintenance menu. bob
