🚀 go-pugleaf

I have been testing a Scsi to Channel Adapter box from Bus-Tech
that attaches 8mm tape drives to a 370 system as 3420's.
The emulation works fairly well and it is easy to write to the drives
using normal procedures, MOVEFILE, VMFPLC2, TAPE DUMP, etc.  I was very
excited to dump all our files on 2 five gigabyte tapes. A physical backup
worked fine but did not give the enduser the needed restoration information.

When I attempt a full logical backup under VMBACKUP and a minidisk was being
updated while VMBACKUP was trying to back it up, VMBACKUP tried to back space
the tape and rewrite the data again.  This works fine in a 3420/3480
environment but in the 8mm and DAT world you can not do a BACK SPACE
RECORD followed by a WRITE.  The 8mm drive developers did not want users
messing up their data.  So, why am I telling you all this ?

After a series of discusions with Exabyte, Bus-Tech and Systems Center,
the only solution that I can see is to enhance VMBACKUP to not use
the channel commands BSR (x'27') followed by a WRITE (x'01') during
minidisk change detection or just support 8mm drives differently where
the BSR/WRITE sequence is performed.  There is a VMBACKUP enhancement
request already in existence to support 8mm drives.
It is enhancement number 31749.

Please call Systems Center (703-264-8100) and request to be put on the
list of interested parties for this enhancement.
It seems that the amount of customer response is the catalyst towards
solving this problem.



Thank You.
Paul Pratte
University of Missouri - St.Louis
PRATTE@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU
314-553-6018