Two systems having access to the same tape drives

Products

• VM:Tape for z/VM

Issue/Introduction

 If two systems (VM1 and VM2) have access to the same tape drives and VM1 has allocated one of them, can VM2 allocate the same drive?

Environment

Release: VMTAPE55400-2-VM:Tape
Component:

Resolution

Yes, unless your VM:Tape system is interfaced with the STAM facility or CA MIA. If you are manually sharing drives between systems, you must ensure that a tape drive is never varied online to more than one system at any given time. Without STAM or CA MIA, one system has no way of knowing if another system is using the drive.