Tape Management Systems › Foreign Tape Processing

Foreign Tape Processing

A foreign tape is a tape that has not been defined to the Tape Management System. Foreign tapes fall into two categories, VOLSERs that were never defined to the Tape Management System and duplicate VOLSERs.

Foreign tape processing involves coding a special value in your JCL to indicate that the Tape Management System should not track and validate the use of the VOLSER referenced. The special value is typically LABEL=EXPDT=98000.

CA Vtape will automatically attempt to intercept any mount for a VOLSER that has been defined to CA Vtape if the unit esoteric or generic coded in the mount request includes the CA Vtape Virtual Devices. If you have a tape with a VOLSER that matches a Virtual Volume, you need to use a unit esoteric or generic that does not include the Virtual Devices, hardcode a device number that does not belong to CA Vtape, or use Foreign Tape Processing to bypass CA Vtape.

When a specific mount request for a CA Vtape VOLSER is detected and the referenced DD statement defines an expiration date that matches the CA Vtape ForeignTapesExpdt attribute value, the Virtual Devices will be marked ineligible in the eligible device list (EDL). The mount request will be ignored by CA Vtape.

If you write to a VOLSER that matches that of a CA Vtape Virtual Volume, all subsequent mount requests for this VOLSER must use a LABEL=EXPDT value equal to the ForeignTapesExpdt value or CA Vtape will try to intercept the mount request and mount the Virtual Volume instead of the original VOLSER written.

You should define a ForeignTapesExpdt value consistent with that used by the tape management system installed. For example, when mounting a tape that is not controlled by CA 1, you code LABEL=EXPDT=98000 on the DD statement to bypass CA 1 validation. Using the same value for CA Vtape will allow a foreign tape with a VOLSER matching that of a Virtual Volume to be mounted on a non-Virtual Device.

To correct problems you might need to mount a Virtual Volume, but bypass tape management validation. To do this you would set the CA Vtape ForeignTapesExpdt attribute to a value that does not match that of the tape management system and issue the SVTn REFRESH=OPTIONS console command to pick up the change. When you code LABEL=EXPDT=98000 in your JCL, you will bypass the tape management system, but not CA Vtape.