Optical and Tape Volume Support

DFSMS provides the following functions to help you more easily manage data residing on optical and tape volumes:

Interactive Storage Management Facility

ISMF lets you define attributes for optical libraries and optical drives interactively.

MVS system commands

OAM and SMS allow you to display the following information:

Object access method status (the number, type, and availability of defined optical drives in the active configuration)
A summary of the name, type, and status of OAM control tasks, and information about object processing status
Details about the number, type, and status of object processing for a specified control task
Optical and tape library, optical drive status, and tape drive status (online, offline, connectivity to the system).

Object Access Method

The object access method (OAM) lets you create, access, and delete objects on optical, tape, or disk storage. You define SMS groups and classes to establish the following operating conditions:

Object storage medium hierarchies and requests for a backup copy of an object
Whether the object resides on optical, tape, or disk storage
When to migrate an object from one storage medium to another
The number of backup copies of an object assigned to an object or object backup storage group
Object expiration sequences

Parallel Sysplex

A Parallel Sysplex® allows you to link multiple systems together to communicate and share data through the cross-system coupling facility. XCF services allow authorized applications on one system to cooperate with and share data with applications on the same system or on other systems within the sysplex. Because a sysplex facilitates parallel processing on multiple systems, objects can be accessed from all instances of OAM and from optical hardware within the sysplex. This allows transactions to be processed more efficiently.

For further information about OAM object support for optical and tape libraries and drives, see: