RE: Keep BRMS Inventory in Sync problem

["Ingvaldson, Scott" <scott.ingvaldson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The "available" tapes should be listed in the Expired media report
(QP1AMM) and IIRC BRMS will try to use them in the order of that report.

Are the tapes in your library the first 9 expired tapes from the report?
Are these BRMS saves or native SAVxxx commands?  Is there more than one
system attached to this library?  What do you need to do to put them
back in sync?

Regards,

Scott Ingvaldson
Senior IBM Support Specialist
Fiserv Midwest
  

-----Original Message-----
From: franz400@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:franz400@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 12:39 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Keep BRMS Inventory in Sync problem

Trying to keep the BRMS inventory of media (wrkmedbrm) in sync with the
system's WRKTAPCTG, and in sync with what is actually in the tape
library. 
Every day it is out of sync. The tape library has 9 tapes in it. 
WRKTAPCTG has all 9, but only one has status = avail, yet all the tapes
are in BRMS move policies and BRMS sees all of them (plus a few more
that are not in the drive). Most in BRMS are labelled Expired, so I
would think they are "available", but the systems WRKTAPCTG doesn't see
it that way, and our nightly media log shows several attempts to use
cartridges before it finally selects one that both inventories agree
upon. This is not supposed to be magic...
Our scenario is not unique - a single cartridge needed every night, a 2
week rotation (14 tapes), plus some spares in the drive, because every
month end with remove the tape for perm storage (and update the
WRKMEDBRM). 
Each day an operator at remote data center removes the one cartridge
from the I/O slot and puts the tape from 2 weeks ago into a library
slot. They have no user access to our system. We have a move policy that
says after a save the media goes to a location called VAULT and returns
13 days later. 
This is a IBM TS3100 Tape Lib - 23 slots plus a single I/O slot, drive
in Random mode (per an IBM Support recommendation). V5R4M5 Cume and BRMS
Group at latest levels.
Currently requires user maint every couple days to put back in sync. 
Jim Franz