BRMS and ProtecTIER Movement Considerations

When using BRMS with ProtecTIERs that will be running replication, there are additional considerations that need to be taken when running movement.

Most customers are going to have 2 sites with a ProtecTIER at each site and then systems at each of those sites. It is unlikely that a system will be physically attached to both ProtecTIERs

There are a few things to note when moving cartridges that reside in a Tape Media Library, virtual or physical:

Media will only be ejected if BRMS movement, WRKMEDBRM Option 8, RMVTAPCTG , WRKTAPCTG Option 4 or WRKMLMBRM option 7 is run from a system physically connected to the Tape Media Library unless users have setup the option to Eject Media on a Tape Media Library that is Not Configured on the Local System .

Example

SOURCEPT with SYSA, SYSB and SYSC attached
TARGETPT with SYSD, SYSE and SYSF attached
All systems are in a BRMS network.

The saves will be done on SYSA, SYSB and SYSC to the SOURCEPT ProtecTIER and then replicated to the TARGETPT ProtecTIER
BRMS movement will run on SYSA and the volumes used in the save will be ejected on SOURCEPT .
When a cartridge is ejected on a ProtecTIER, the following will occur:

On the SOURCEPT, the cartridge is moved to the I/O station and is them moved to shelf
On the TARGETPT, the cartridge is moved from the shelf to the I/O station

Once a volume is ready to move back to the original location, expired or restores are complete, movement needs to be run on one of the systems attached to the TARGETPT ProtecTIER.

When running movement in this environment, users will need to use MOVMEDBRM and not run movement as part of BRMS maintenance (STRMNTBRM). This is because locations cannot be specified for movement on the STRMNTBRM command.

In the above example, it is recommended that the following commands are used to move media:

On SYSA, SYSB or SYSC - MOVMEDBRM LOC(SOURCEPT)
On SYSD, SYSE or SYSF - MOVMEDBRM LOC(TARGETPT)
- NOTE: With PTFs SI47935 (IBM i 7.1) and SI47934 (IBM i 6.1) or superseding PTFs, upto 10 locations can be specified on the MOVMEDBRM command

If cartridges need to be moved manually , because they do not have move policies or under special circumstances, WRKMEDBRM Option 8 should be used. Cartridges should never be moved from to to the shelf using the ProtecTIER manager interface. If a cartridge is not on the shelf at the target ProtecTIER, replication to it will fail.