ARM DMSAR queuing of requests for active tape volumes

Products

• Vantage Storage Resource Manager
• DISK BACKUP AND RESTORE

Issue/Introduction

When setting up ARM to use dedicated Disk and Tape DMSAR server processing via parameter ARDEDSRV (Y),

the parameter ARDSQTAP controls the queuing of requests for active tape volumes. 

It is recommended to set ARDSQTAP to (Y), so data sets on tape archive volumes currently being used by a DMSAR server are processed by the server using the volume. 

The server does not unload the volume until there are no other requests for that volume. 

This prevents multiple servers from engaging in non-productive contention for volumes and reduces the number of tape mounts by processing all requests for a volume at the same time.

However, at the customer site a tape was kept longer.

The server did not unload the volume when there were no other requests for that volume. 

The tape was kept even in the ARM idle time set in parameter STCTIME until the DMSAR ended.

Environment

CA Disk 12.5 and Vantage 14.0 with Auto-Restore Manager (ARM)

Cause

CA Disk sysparm DYNUKEEP is set to Y.

Resolution

Set CA Disk sysparm DYNUKEEP to N for ARM controlled DMSAR in the ARESPARM of the DMSAR proc.

With DYNUKEEP set to N, the default value, the device is freed at completion of each archvols tape. 

If the sysparm is specified with a value of Y, the same device is kept for the entire job step.