HP Archive Backup System for OpenVMS Guide to Operations

4.7.3 Slot Count
4.7.4 Spaces
4.7.5 Move Magazine(s)
Media Management
4.7 Magazines
Each magazine should have an onsite and offsite location defined, so that operators know where
the magazine is physically located. They use these locations, the jukebox name and the placement
to determine where a jukebox is at a certain time. Both onsite and offsite locations should
be MDMS-defined location objects.
Together with the offsite and onsite locations, you can associate an offsite and onsite date. These
dates represent the date the magazine is due to be moved offsite or onsite respectively. Typically,
magazines are moved offsite while their volumes’ data is still valid and needs to be protected in
a secure location. When the volumes’ data expires, the magazine should be scheduled to be
brought onsite, so that the newly-freed volumes can be used for other purposes.
If an offsite and/or onsite date is specified, MDMS initiates the movement of the magazines at
some point on the scheduled date automatically. This is performed by the “Move Magazine”
scheduled operation, which by default runs at 1:00 am each day. Operators will see OPCOM
messages to move the magazines to either the onsite or offsite location.
If you do not wish to have MDMS move magazines automatically, either remove the onsite and
offsite dates from the magazine, or disable the scheduled “Move Magazine” activity by assigning
a zero time to its schedule object “MDMS$MOVE_MAGAZINES”.
The slot count specifies how many slots are in the magazine. Unlike jukeboxes, this value is
required to make magazines work properly.
While in an onsite location, the magazine can occupy a space, which is a labelled part of a location
that uniquely identifies where the magazine is. A space can be designed to handle a single
volume, but since magazines hold multiple volumes, multiple spaces can also be assigned. Enter
either a space or a range of spaces for the magazine.
The supported way to move magazines from one place to another is to use the “Move Magazine”
operation. You can move magazines on demand by issuing this operation, or you can let MDMS
automatically move magazines according to pre-defined onsite or offsite dates (this is called a
“scheduled” move). You can also force an early scheduled move if you want it to occur before
the time that MDMS would initiate the move. Moving magazines into jukeboxes must always be
performed manually.
When intiating a “Move Magazine”, you can choose a destination for the magazine if the move
is not a scheduled move. The destination can be one of three types of places:
• Jukebox - You wish to move the magazine and all of its volumes into a jukebox; you would
then specify the jukebox name. If the jukebox is a large TL820-type jukebox, you must also
specify the “Position”, using tower, face and level, or start slot for the magazine.
• Onsite location - You wish to move the magazine to a location that is onsite to the computer
hardware that normally uses it. You would then specify the onsite location name, and
optionally one or more spaces that the magazine (or volumes from the magazine) will
occupy.
• Offsite location - You wish to move the magazine to an offsite location for safety in case of
a disaster. Specify an offsite location name.
If you want to force a scheduled move, you can select “Scheduled”. In most cases, the destination
is predefined, so you don’t need to specify it. However, you can specify an alternative destination
for the scheduled move if you wish by specifying a destination as outlined above.
Media Management 4–15