Balancing Media in a BRMS Network

The Start Media Balancing for BRM (STRBALBRM) command balances expired media ownership to match the required number of media needed for systems within a BRMS network.

Notes:

1.   You should make sure all BRMS activity is quiesced prior to balancing your media and all systems in the BRMS network are available (not in a restricted state).
2.   BRMS will only balance expired media.
3.   BRMS will not change the media class of media. If one class has additional media, BRMS will not change the media class.
4.   This only needs to be set up on one system in the BRMS network.

The basic steps to use this command are as follows:
1.   List your systems in the order of highest to lowest priority.
2.   Set priority for each system. (If multiple systems have the same priority, BRMS will assign volumes to systems in alphabetical order)

   STRBALBRM ACTION(*SET) MEDCLS(media-class) LOC(location) SYSNAME(system-name) MEDPTY(number) MEDREQ(number)

3.   Print and review the Media Balance Report.

   STRBALBRM ACTION(*REPORT) MEDCLS(media-class) LOC(location)

4. If necessary, balance the media using ACTION(*BALANCE).

5.   Once again, print and review the Media Balance Report.

Example

Systems in network are :

         PROD01
         PROD02
         DEV
Media Class used:        ULTRIUM3
Tape Media Library device description: TAPMLB01

The steps to balance your scratch media are as follows:

1.   List your systems in the order of highest priority to lowest priority.

    System Priority   Required Prod01    1           5 Prod02    2           4 Dev       3           2

2.   When you have established your hierarchy of systems, you must issue the following commands to set the above priority:

   STRBALBRM ACTION(*SET) MEDCLS(ULTRIUM3) LOC(TAPMLB01) SYSNAME(PROD01) MEDPTY(1) MEDREQ(5)       STRBALBRM ACTION(*SET) MEDCLS(ULTRIUM3) LOC(TAPMLB01) SYSNAME(PROD02) MEDPTY(2) MEDREQ(4)       STRBALBRM ACTION(*SET) MEDCLS(ULTRIUM3) LOC(TAPMLB01) SYSNAME(DEV) MEDPTY(3) MEDREQ(2)

3.   Print and evaluate the Media Balance report to ensure that your systems are setup correctly. To do so, run the following command:

   STRBALBRM ACTION(*REPORT) MEDCLS(ULTRIUM3) LOC(TAPMLB01)

    Before

    File . . . . . : QP1AMBL                                        Page/L    Control . . . . .                                               Column    Find . . ..+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7....+....8....+....9....+....0....+....1.    5761BR1 V6R1M0 080215               Media Balancing Report      6/29/09 13:56:1    Selection Criteria    Media Class . . . . . . . . . . : ULTRIUM3    Location . . . . . . . . . . . . : TAPMLB01    System . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *NETGRP    Number of   Number of    System Network Media Media           Media       Media    Name        ID             Class             Location     Priority        Required    Available    Status    PROD01 APPN        ULTRIUM3   TAPMLB01        1                5           3                 Communicating    PROD02 APPN        ULTRIUM3   TAPMLB01        2                4           5                 Communicating    DEV     APPN        ULTRIUM3   TAPMLB01        3                2           3                 Communicating

4.   Once you have reviewed the report and you have determined that the actual amount of media is not greater to or equal to the required amount, you will need balance your media. To balance your media, you need to run the following command:

   STRBALBRM ACTION(*BALANCE) MEDCLS(ULTRIUM3) LOC(TAPMLB01)

5.   Print and evaluate the Media Balance report to ensure that your systems are setup correctly. To do so, run the following command:

   STRBALBRM ACTION(*REPORT) MEDCLS(ULTRIUM3) LOC(TAPMLB01)

   After

   File . . . . . : QP1AMBL                                        Page/L    Control . . . . .                                               Column    Find . . ..+....1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7....+....8....+....9....+....0....+....1.    5761BR1 V6R1M0 080215               Media Balancing Report      6/29/09 13:59:10    Selection Criteria    Media Class . . . . . . . . . . : ULTRIUM3    Location . . . . . . . . . . . . : TAPMLB01    System . . . . . . . . . . . . . : *NETGRP    Number of   Number of    System Network Media Media            Media       Media    Name        ID             Class            Location     Priority         Required    Available    Status    PROD01 APPN        ULTRIUM3   TAPMLB01        1                5           5                Communicating    PROD02 APPN        ULTRIUM3   TAPMLB01        2                4           4                Communicating    DEV     APPN        ULTRIUM3   TAPMLB01        3                2           2                Communicating

Notes:

Before any balancing of the media is done, there are 11 available volumes that can be distributed among the systems in the network.
The QP1AMBL report will list how many tapes are required by each of the systems as opposed to the number of volumes that are available. In this example, 11 volumes are required and there are in fact 11 volumes available. When balanced, these volumes are correctly spread out across the systems in the network. However, if there had only been 10 volumes available (as opposed to 11), after the balancing is done, the system with the lowest priority would only have one volume allocated (5 for system one + 4 for system two + 1 for system three). System three would therefore not have enough volumes to successfully back up its data.
The number of required media is a number derived by you, the system administrator. You must be familiar with each of your systems and know exactly how many volumes are required by each system so that you can enter this number for this parameter.
The values of the Media Priority (MEDPTY) and number of media required (MEDREQ) parameters will be ignored if *REPORT, *BALANCE or *REMOVE is specified for the Action (ACTION).
Use the ACTION(*REMOVE) option to remove previously specified media requirements.
When using ACTION(*SET) , system names need to be specified in the SYSNAM() parameter. Do not use *NETGRP with ACTION(*SET).
BRM4301 will be posted if enough volumes are not available to fulfill the required balancing.When this occurs, all additional balancing will be ended and a BRM2178 will be posted