August 26, 2003

Series on South Migration

CIT plans to shut down the South system effective January 12, 2004. Watch two Web sites regularly—Titan/South System News and the Titan Transition. Both Web pages are continually updated.

This is the sixth article in the series on the migration processs—so that you don't miss important news and you do have a smooth transition to Titan. These articles are reprinted from Titan Transition Migration Process Web page.

Topics to be covered in this series over the next months

1.   Determine your USERid(s) and password    
2.   Logon to Titan (TSO)—Changes
3.   Review your data security needs
4.   Access NIH Wylbur
5.   Test your batch jobs     [TitanPrep] [JCL changes]   
6.   Review your tapes with the Web Tape facility   < ARTICLE BELOW
    [moving tapes] [tape JCL]

---

6. Review Your Tapes with the Web Tape Facility.

•     Review your tapes with the Web Tape facility.
•     Remove, release or move your tapes to Titan.
•     Change tape JCL as needed (TitanPrep will indicate where these changes are needed).

---

How to Review Your Tapes

• Use the Web Tape facility to examine your tapes and the data sets on your tapes.
  • This facility allows you to display your tapes, release them, run TAPESCANs on them or select tapes to move to Titan. You can also download an Excel spreadsheet of all of your tapes.
• Select the display/release tapes option to display all volumes assigned to you.
• Release tapes you no longer need by checking the "Select tape" box for each tape to be released and clicking on the "Release selected tapes" box at the bottom.
• Run the TAPESCAN option of the Web Tape facility - but only on "unknown" tapes you would like more information on.
• Identify tapes you want to keep on the South but will not need to move to Titan - you do not need to do anything with these tapes.
• Move tapes that can go to Titan (the moved tapes will have new volume serial numbers).
• Change data set names when necessary.
• Change any JCL for batch jobs that use tapes.

---

Web Tape Facility

[To open the Web Tape Facility you will be asked to enter your userid (AAAAIII).]
[An example of the dialog box that appears is shown below.]

Web Tape - South System Tapes Assigned To [AAAAIII]

When moving to Titan, South customers will need to decide what to do with their tapes - whether to remove them from the NIH data center, release them, or move them to Titan. Web Tape was developed to make this process easier. Select the following actions for your tapes: Display/Release/Move [links to list of tapes assigned to AAAAIII] display information release one or more tapes What information is available? move a tape to Titan What you should know about moving your tapes. Tapescan [interactive link for AAAAIII] - enter up to five tapes to be processed by TAPESCAN.           Should you use TAPESCAN? What changes will occur when I move my tape processing to Titan?

---

Moving Your South System Tapes to Titan

Because the South system and Titan have different tape management systems, tape data cannot be shared like disk data.  Instead, South tapes will need to be moved to Titan. When a tape moves to Titan, the volume serial number will change.

You have two options:

1. Use Web Tape to request that CIT move your tape(s). If CIT moves the tape:
   • You will not be charged - the job to move your tape is run under an operator's id.
   • You won't have the tape available on the South system after it has been moved.  After the tape is moved it is reassigned to CIT and kept for 45 days in case of any problems with the new tape. Once your tape has moved to Titan you should check it to ensure that it is all right.  You may use the TMS Tape Inventory Control System (option L.4 of ISPF on Titan) to do this.

2. Copy a tape yourself. You can copy a South system tape to Titan by using the South tape as a foreign/special tape on Titan.  If you copy the tape yourself:
   • You will be charged for the copy job like any other batch job.
   • The tape is still available on the South system.  You should be careful when using this option:
     • If you write on the South tape while using it on Titan you are likely to have problems if you try to use the tape again on the South system.
     • Once you have copied the tape to Titan, if you update either the original tape on the South system or the copy of the tape on Titan, the tapes will get out of sync because the tape on the other system will not be updated.
     • If you need to update the data on this tape and have it available from both systems, you may want to copy the data to disk.   All disk data is available from both the South and Titan systems.
   • Generally, copying a tape yourself is most useful for providing test data to Titan while still keeping your South tape available for production work on the South system.

You may not need to move your tape(s) at all:

If you create tapes on a cycle (e.g., data backups), keep them for a period of time and then write over them, you should be able to simply move the process to Titan, then release the old South tapes at the end of their life-cycle.

• On Titan, since you have to specify a retention period when you create a tape data set, we recommend that you always write to new (scratch) tapes, and expire them according to the cycle you previously used.
• For example, let's say you write to tape1 the first week, tape2 the second week and tape3 the third week.  On the 4th week you rewrite tape1.  You should change this process on Titan so that you always write to a new (scratch) tape but expire it in 3 weeks.
• Sample backup cycle JCL:  

  • Old process:  
    //ddname   DD   DISP=(NEW,KEEP),
    //   DSNAME=dsname,UNIT=TAPE,VOL=SER=nnnnnn
  • New process:
    //ddname   DD   DISP=(NEW,KEEP),
    //   DSNAME=userid.dsname,UNIT=TAPE,RETPD=22

If you need assistance in changing your cycle process, please call TASC and ask to speak to a Titan consultant.

---

Change Tape JCL as Needed

[TitanPrep will indicate where these changes are needed.]

DD Statements

Tape Parameters

When you create a new tape data set you must specify either RETPD= or EXPDT= . Although the RETPD and EXPDT parameters are not supported on the South system, you can change your JCL running on the South and the parameters will simply be ignored.

Example 1:  EXPDT

//dd1 DD DSNAME=userid.dsname, DISP=(NEW,KEEP),UNIT=TAPE,
//              EXPDT=2006/033)

In this example, the tape data set will be kept until the 33rd day of 2006.

Example 2:  RETPD

//dd2 DD DSNAME=userid.dsname,DISP=(NEW,KEEP),UNIT=TAPE,
//              RETPD=35

In this example, the tape data set will be kept for 35 days.