Administrator's Guide


Chapter 6. Managing Device Classes

A device class represents a device type that can be used to by TSM. TSM uses the device class to determine which device and storage volume type to use to:

Each storage pool is associated with only one device class. When a new device class is defined, its device type must be specified to indicate the type of storage volumes used to store data.

For random access storage, TSM provides the DISK device class, which is already defined. You can define many storage pools that are categorized by the DISK device class. Although you can mix disk devices in a DISK storage pool, you should consider performance requirements for restoring or retrieving files. For example, if users need immediate access to certain files, you could define a DISK storage pool, which consists of only 3390 DASD to ensure that these files reside on faster speed devices.

For sequential access storage, TSM supports the following device types:

3590
IBM 3590 tape drives

CARTRIDGE
Cartridge tape drives, such as IBM 3480, 3490 and 3490E drives

FILE
Storage volumes that are actually sequential files

SERVER
Storage volumes that are actually files archived in the server storage of another TSM server (a target server)

TSM provides a predefined device class named CARTRIDGE, which has the device type of CARTRIDGE. You can modify this device class and define additional device classes for sequential access devices.

See the following sections:

Concepts:
"How to Choose Device Classes"
Tasks:
"Defining and Updating Tape Device Classes"
"Defining FILE Device Classes"
"Defining and Updating SERVER Device Classes"
"Requesting Information about Device Classes"
"Deleting Device Classes"

In this chapter, most examples illustrate how to perform tasks by using the TSM command line interface. For information about the TSM commands, see Administrator's Reference, or issue the HELP command from the command line of an TSM administrative client.


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