About Scratch Pools

CA VM:Tape scratch pools allow a site to maintain multiple pools of scratch tapes and to control the allocation of scratch tapes to users according to user ID and data set name. CA VM:Tape automatically verifies that a tape from the proper scratch pool is mounted.

You can authorize a user for access to multiple scratch pools, and to allow the user to select the scratch pool used for a mount request. Users can select a specific pool by specifying the POOL option on the MOUNT command whenever two or more pools can be used to satisfy a mount request.

Note: For more information about when users can select scratch tapes from specific pools, see User-Selectable Scratch Pools.

CA VM:Tape can also use scratch pools defined on OS systems. For more information, see Scratch Pools on OS Minidisks.

CA VM:Tape also supports scratch pools when using a supported ARM product. For information about using CA VM:Tape scratch pools with these ARMs, see the appendix for your ARM product:

The IBM Tape Library Data Server uses scratch categories, not scratch pools. Scratch pool support for this device means that CA VM:Tape keeps track of the pool definitions and the associated tapes. When CA VM:Tape receives a request for a tape from a scratch pool, it selects the tape and sends a request to the Tape Library Data Server asking it to mount the selected tape. For more information about scratch mount requests and scratch pools in the Tape Library Data Server, see IBM Tape Library Data Server.