TS7700 and TS3500 : new functions

For the TS7700 and TS3500 there wasn't actually a real announcement last week. As far as I can see, there were only firmware upgrades for which no announcement is needed.

You can find the new functions for the TS3500 Tape Library R9A on the IBM support pages or on the TS3500 Information Center. Here's a short summary :

• Support for greater than 6260/6887 slots : you can now have 15.000 slots for 3592 media and 20.000 slots for LTO media.
  
• Inventory Self-Correction
• Key Path Diagnostics via the Web Specialist
• Automatically set HD slot offline for specific errors
• SNMP Audit Logging
• SNMP traps for EKM/TKLM communication failure, tape drive TapeAlert 18, new unassigned cartridge, and all doors closed
• Added Offline slot count on System Summary web page

The new functions of the TS7700 R1.6 can be found in the data sheet. Here's a short summary :

• 2-way grid has been enhanced up to 4-way grid support
  
• TS7720 and TS7740 can now be combined in the same grid. This "allows a TS7720 to use a TS7740 as an archival installation providing full back end tape functionality"
• Virtual WORM Tape media are supported : "microcode capabilities allow the TS7700 Virtualization Engine to support a virtual equivalent of write once read many (WORM) tape media".
• Machine code install should be improved and installation time should be significantly reduced.