Semi |
Hi Martin
As you’re a mainframe man, this I’m sure is a dumb question, but sometimes you never know… I assume you have checked the tapedrive itself? I have known dlt drives to fail in unusual manners, one showing same symptoms as this…. the drive thought it was fine, just never recognised the media. There’s not much else that can just change and produce these results.
Ian
Gilly400 |
Hi,
IBM are busy with the problem, but still haven’t come up with any solutions yet. So I guess the drive itself checks out OK. We have 2 of these libraries, one works fine and the other one has just stopped recognising that there’s media available.
Cheers,
Martin.
Mcl |
Martin,
What type of library? (May not make much differance).
BRMS will tell you there is no media available for a variety of reasons. The obvious ones are things like the media is not expired. Not so obvious are things like media policies and move policies and media class.
Go BRMPCY
Opt #1 - System Policy - Look at the Media Policy and Media Class. These are the defaults the backup uses.
Opt #2 - Backup policy - most likely the Media Policy will be *SYSPCY (System Policy) but it could use some other value.
Opt #7 - Media Policies - find the one you use (from options #1 and #2) and note the Move Policy.
Go BRMBKUPLN
Opt #2 - Backup Control groups. Note the values for the Media policies for the backup control group that you run your backups under. If not the same as above, you’ll need to take a look at the Media Policies again to get the Move policy.
Go BRMMED
Opt #2 - work with media. Filter the list by “location” (Tape libs are usually TAPMLB01) and use opt #5 on a volser to look at the move policy. It has to match the move policy for the media policy that your backup control group uses. Also check the media class..
And, you may think you have tapes in the library - but if they don’t show up on that work with media display, BRMS can’t use them.
Go BRMMED, use opt#9 - Work with Media Libraries. Then use Opt #8 - Work with MLB Media. Take the defaults. This will give you a list of all the media actually in the library. Category should be “*SHARE400″ and status should be “Available”. If not, use option #6 to “Change” the status. No parameters, it takes a minute or so, but should change the category. Press F5 to update the display and the status will change.
If you are showing a bunch of tapes as “Ejected” you may find the easiest thing is to manually remove them and reload them. I have had BRMS get confused…
Also, do you run BRMS maintenance? Go BRMF, option #5. It helps keep the BRMS database cleaned up.
That’s the basics of BRMS config.. Hope it helps you or someone else.
If you have a hardware problem, you probably wind up talking to more than one group at IBM. Most of the AS/400 guys don’t know tape libraries.. And the Tape Lib guys don’t know AS/400’s. But, they do a pretty good job when they talk to each other.
Regards
Mike
Tpinky |
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 is difficult.
Every day it goes 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 labeled 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.
When was the last time you ran the STRMNTBRM command?
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 these BRMS saves or native SAVxxx commands? Is there more than one system attached to this library?
Teresa
Gilly400 |
Hi,
We have the STRMNTBRM scheduled daily.
We use BRMS save commands.
There are several systems attached to the library.
I’ll take a look at the Expired media report and see what it thinks is available.
Thanks,
Martin.
Gilly400 |
Hi,
I see from the expired media report that we have 208 total volumes and 208 expired with 0 active. Some have media type as YES and some have media type as blanks. For the rest I don’t see anything unusual.
Regards,
Martin.
Mcl |
I just looked at an expred media report and I’m not seeing a column for “media type” - but then we’re on V5R3..
You can have all sorts of expired volumes - but BRMS has to think they are in the library.
Have you tried this? Go BRMMED, run opt #9 and then on the next screen option #8 to work with MLB media. Just use the defaults on the next screen. This will show you the volume, category, media class, status and expired status. The category should be “*SHARE400″, Status should be “Available”, Media Class should be whatever you are using and expired should be “*Yes”. If you have volumes there that look OK, go back to the menu, run opt #2 and filter on your tape lib name. You should see the same volumes. If you have all of that then BRMS should be working. At that point I would suspect a tape drive problem. I’ve had drives fail in our 3583 lib resulting in a no media avail condition.
If IBM does replace a drive make sure you check the tape devices afterwards. Drives have serial numbers which can cause the system to auto-create new resources. At least I’ve seen that problem occur with 3580’s.
And since IBM *always* asks you if your PTF’s are updated… If you have a 3583 (and probably a 3584?) it has a built-in web interface. You go through that to update the code on the lib - rediculously simple once you have done it.
Hey Teresa.. I’ve never had problems keeping the inventory in sync unless I pull tapes without telling BRMS to move them out of the lib. Are you running your lib in serial mode or random access mode? Type of lib probably has a lot to do with it, too..
Regards
Mike
AnchorS |
We had the same issue and called IBM. There is a PTF available. I couldn’t even finish my description of the problem before they gave me the PTF number . We’re on V5R4. I didn’t document the ptf number. Sorry, I don’t have the PTF number, but we are on group ptf #20. Feel free to contact me if you want our specifics. <a href="mailto:steve_mcadams@anchorlink.com">steve_mcadams@anchorlink.com</a>
BRMS, AS/400, iSeries, Tape backups, Backup & recovery, media, AS/400 backup, Backup Recovery and Media Services
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