Re: Physical Tape Alternatives?

[Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Rob,

Thanks for your reply. In regard to the type of device that is created for
the VTL, would you mind looking at its device description (DSPDEVD) and see
what shows up in the "Category of device" attribute? *OPT or *TAP or
something else? My guess was that the VTL would show up as *TAP, which is
what you get from CRTDEVTAP DEVD(NAME) RSRCNAME(*VRT). The category of the
device makes a big difference on the behavior of SAV and SAVLIB commands,
etc. That would help me compare and contrast the VTL device with *OPT
devices.





On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 1:37 PM Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Here is where you're confused.
> A VTL is NOT equal to a virtual tape device.  No comparison.
> A VTL (Virtual Tape Library) is a separate appliance.  It is not a just
> space on disk to store image catalog entries for use with virtual tape
> devices.
> A virtual tape device is something you configure with CRTDEVTAP
> DEVD(TAPVRT01) RSRCNAME(*VRT)
> A VTL which integrates nicely with BRMS and existing IBM i commands
> requires a fiber channel card.  Some low end models which use their own
> commands may connect with TCP/IP.
>
> A VTL can have multiple (hundreds) different tape volumes in it's library
> just like the big IBM physical tape libraries can have.  When BRMS says
> mount U00123 it will go find that volume load it up and process it.  A
> virtual tape device cannot do that.
>
> Rob Berendt
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