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

["Brad Jensen" <brad@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Nolen-Parkhouse" <aparkhouse@mediaone.net>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 6:13 AM
Subject: RE: CD-R & DVD-R for the iSeries and Office Vision, 2
seperate questions


> Brad,
>
> Are you saying that the AS/400 command completes before the data
is
> written to the CD?  Suppose I had a chunk of code which
performed the
> following three tasks:
>
> 1) save an object from the AS/400
> 2) verify completion message from the save
> 3) delete the object from the AS/400
>
> If I understand what you have written below, the object could be
deleted
> from the AS/400 prior to it being written to my backup media
(the CD).
> Is this correct?  For my own use, I would want an option to
verify the
> complete process prior to moving on to the next operation.  Is
that
> something which could be configured on the PC side of the
operation?

When it returns as complete, there is a backup copy in a much
safer place than CD--- on a raided hard drive. It is fully
restoreable through the same interface it was written through.

Your primary backup is actually RAID. In the first generation it
may not be removeable, but we plan to make removeable disk
cartrdiges (up to a coule of terabytes of AS/400 capacity,
eventually) an option.

Is your data safer on RAID PC disk than ont he AS/400? No, of
course not. IS it safer than it is now on mag tape? Yes, a heck of
lot safer. And using this near line backup means you have gained
the time to do what you are supposed to do: make multiple copies.
And it also gives you the choice of choosing media for a backup.
DVD-RAM is a good choice, but it is too slow for contemporaneous
backup.

Also, your restores will most likley be a lot faster also. Restore
time is even more critical than backup time. While you are backing
up, the operator is waiting. While you are restoring, the whole
company and all your customers and all their customers may be
waiting.

Yes, it would be easy to add a command to check that the CD  or
DVD or Tape writing has completed. I would not exepct the normal
user process to look for it, any more than I would expect a backup
to wit until a second or third tape copy has been made.

Right now people are writing to unverified backup tapes - because
they have to for reasonable backup times. If they backup to the
raid drive, it will be a lot safer than backing up to a tape that
might have gone bad this time. This process will be an improvement
on that, and lead to multiple copy backups, backup and verify,
etc.

> You wrote in an earlier post in this thread that you had seen a
CD-R
> drive for the iSeries.  That piqued my interest so I went into
the
> configurator to see if I could configure one on an 8xx machine.
I found
> the DVD-RAM drive (#4430), but could not find a recordable CD-R
drive.
> Were you referring to IBM parts?

IF you read the product sheet on the DVD-RAM, it says that it can
write CD-R. There are some DVD writer than can do this.

It also has a headphone jacks so you can listen to Spinal Tap if
you choose.

IIIRC and all that.