Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS Media 6.3

I mentioned this one already in a previous post as part of the October 12 annouInfocncements. So, I thought I'll take a look at the IBM site for some more information on this, but I must say it was a bit disappointing. When you go to the Tivoli Storage Manager page, there's not even a reference to TSM for z/OS Media.

But when you want some more content, there's the InfoCenter with a couple of entries ('What's New' and 'TSM for z/OS Media Overview'). And for those of you who prefer a .pdf there's the 'Installation and Configuration guide' which you can find over here. But if you want a good introduction, you can take a look at this presentation Bart Claeys (IBM Belgium) gave at the Total Solutions Event in September in Brussels. Mind you, it was still a preview at the time, but I haven't found any more recent, public presentations about this.

For the lazy ones, I mean, for those with limited time, let me summarize some of it. The deal was that TSM V6 was never announced for z/OS leaving many people with sometimes quite large investments in FICON attached material like Tape Libraries and Virtualisation Engines in the cold. So you had to convert to another platform that was not able to connect to your FICON attached equipment.

Well now, TSM for z/OS Media is the missing link between both. You can now migrate to V6 but you can still write your data via z/OS to your FICON attached equipment. The concept is also "designed to allow the tape volume and stored data that was previously inventoried by the Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS V5.5 server remain accessible on the z/OS system by the Tivoli Storage Manager V6.3 server on AIX or Linux for System z without having to move the tape volume from the z/OS managed tape library" (quote from the announcement letter).

This is a representation of how TSM for z/OS 5.5 operates

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TSM for z/OS V5 takes care of

• Database functions: nodes, administrators, policy, tracking of data
• Communication with clients, Admin Center, other TSM servers
• Performs the I/O to FICON (and other) tape and disk

Click on image for larger version in new window

And above is the new situation, with TSM V6 server on AIX or Linux on z taking over most or all of the functionalities of TSM for z/OS V5. But instead of attaching to storage devices, it can also communicate with the TSM for z/OS Media. So you can preserve your previous FICON investments. There are more details in the presentation, for those who are interested.

I'll just give you a quick overview of the migration path

• Install TSM 6.3 server on AIX or zSeries Linux
• Install z/OS media server
• TSM for z/OS 5.5 server move all storage to TAPE
• Extract and Load : TSM utility extracts records from TSM 5.5 z/OS database and loads into TSM v6 database on AIX or zLinux. There is no need to migrate data already written to tape by TSM on z/OS. So you can preserve stored archive (and backup) data avoiding time-consuming migration of data from existing storage pools.
• Begin backups with new distributed server
• Take TSM for z/OS 5.x server off line

Last but not least : pricing. Well, the goal seems to be to make this a cost neutral operation from a licensing perspective. I know, pretty vague, but I have no experience with it for the moment. So, do contact IBM or your local BP to sort this out with you, because it also seems to depend on the type of licensing you have now.

Planned availability date : November 11, 2011.