Automated Tape Libraries and Virtual Tape Support › IBM Virtual Tape Server (VTS) › CA 1 CTSSYNC Utility Support for the IBM VTS

CA 1 CTSSYNC Utility Support for the IBM VTS

Use the CTSSYNC utility to communicate with OAM using LCS services for the basic ATL and for the VTS. It is the main interface module between CA 1 and OAM. CTSSYNC is used to eject tapes or to perform import/export functions for a VTS. It can also be used to synchronize the TCDB with the TMC.

When using CTSSYNC to import or export tapes from the VTS one of the following additional DD statements is required:

• Export operations require you to specify an EXPORT DD
• Import operations require you to specify an IMPORT DD

These DD statements must point to a unit in the VTS. The list of virtual volumes to be imported or exported is passed to the VTS by temporarily using a virtual volume in scratch status that is allocated with the EXPORT or IMPORT DD statement. For this reason, the virtual volume written on must reside in the same VTS that the volumes are being exported from or imported to. Only one IMPORT or EXPORT can be run at a time.

CTSSYNC can perform eject, export, import or synchronize functions on either a range of volsers or a list of volsers. CA 1 provides the following CA Earl report members in hlq.CTAPECPB to create control statements that can be processed by CTSSYNC:

TMEEJECT

Creates export or eject control statements from the output of the vault management system.

TMEIMPRT

Creates import control statements for a specified physical volser you specify. If some of the virtual volumes are in scratch status, CA 1 builds the control statements so that the actual data on the virtual volume is not copied to cache.

Two following CA Earl report members list VTS physical volumes and assist in creating TMSUPDTE transactions to manage scratching the physical volume when all virtual volumes have expired:

TMEACTVL

Lists the physical tapes that have been used for export processing and the virtual tapes that have been put on each one. If the physical tape is no longer needed, (that is, if all virtual volumes have been imported or all virtual volumes have expired,) it produces TMSUPDTE control statements to help automate the scratching of the physical tape. Once the tape has been scratched you manually insert the physical tape into the library as an eligible stacking volume.

Note: For information, see IBM's IBM VTS User Guide.

TMEVTINV

Lists the physical tapes and the associated exported virtual volumes.