Re: CD-R & DVD-R for the iSeries and Office Vision, 2 seperate questions

[Brad Jensen <brad@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Richter wrote:
>
> If you would explain
>
> how your VTS appears on the system, does it show up as a tape device (
> TAP02 ), do I SAVLIB LIB( xxxx )  DEV(TAP02) to save a library to it, How
> does it cable attach to the system, ....
>
> then it would be easier to understand what you are selling.
>
> Steve Richter

I'm not selling it yet, I'm still designing it with your input.

Our basic techonology is a SCSI target card in a PC attached by
a standard IBM SCSI cable (the same one you would use for your
tape drive.) The device I am emulating is a 7208 model 2 or 12
8MM tape drive (depending on your AS/400 box). On older AS/400s
it attaches thru the 2621 dual SCSI interface, I don't remember
the new interface number offhand. (go see the tech support area
of www.elstore.com, look for Niagara CD Recorder.)

The AS/400 never knows that it is anything else than a 7208. So
you save to it with SAVLIB, SAVOBJ, or a copy to tape, or an RPG
program. When you write to the tape interface, I write to PC
disk (or theoretically to some other device, or the Internet).
Why? because it is FAST. The first time you do an INZTAP command
and have the completion message come back as fast as you press
the enter key, you know it is something a little different.

I code everything you write, the data and the filemarks, into a
file on the PC. When you REWIND I position back to the first
part of the file, when you move forward and back tape marks I do
the same. When you unload the file I close it, create a new file
name and get ready to handle your next 'logical' tape. You can
save lots of data to that PC disk, especially if you compress it
(up to 16 per one in our tests, depeneding on the AS/400 data
you are mocing to the PC).

So you do your backup in a fraction of the time it takes to
tape. (What fraction that is depends on how much your AS/400 is
now waiting on your tape drive.)

This writes your backup to the VTS hard drive. AS far as the
AS/400 is concerned you are done. meanwhile a PC compression
task is running in the background, compressing the data blocks a
lot. AS that is completed, it starts writing the backup file to
another tape, or DVD, or CD.

The nice thing is you can write two or more identical copies.
Verify them if you want. (Remember tape verify?) Or do something
else with the data. Want to load your PC database in batch from
the AS/400? Write it to tape, then have the PC side convert it.

DVDs are slow, but it won't slow up your backup because the data
is safe on a RAID mirrored disk. How many of you are throwing
your old tapes out on schedule? If you write the same tapes over
and over until you get errors, chances are your previus backup
was no good too.

Keep your most recent backups, or most used tape images, on the
PC hard drive. We are also looking for interlock technology that
would let us put hard drives in a drawer and use them like tape
cartidges. (The drawer part is easy.)

And of course you could use this thing as near line storage for
the AS/400.

i noticed oiver the weekend that IBM has a mainframe tape
library called Virtual Tape System, so I think I will be going
back to the 1995 name I had for this thing - Intelligent Backup
System.

I alos have a way to control the thing from the AS/400 side thru
CL.


--
Brad Jensen brad@elstore.com
President
Electronic Storage Corporation Tulsa OK USA
918-664-7276

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