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Administrator's Guide


Managing Volumes

When Tivoli Storage Manager needs a new volume, it chooses a volume from the storage pool available for client backups. If you set up private volumes, it selects a specific volume. If you set up scratch volumes, it selects any scratch volume in the library. This is true for all devices except 3494 devices. See Managing Category Numbers for IBM 3494 Libraries.

Managing Partially-Written Volumes

Except for volumes in automated libraries, Tivoli Storage Manager is unaware of a scratch volume until after the volume is mounted. Then, the volume status changes to private, and the volume is automatically defined as part of the storage pool for which the mount request was made. Partially-written volumes are always private volumes, even if their status was scratch before they were selected. Tivoli Storage Manager tracks the original status of scratch volumes, so it can return them to scratch status when they become empty.

For information on changing the status of a volume in an automated library, see Changing the Status of Automated Library Volumes.

Managing the Volume Inventory for an Automated Library Device

Tivoli Storage Manager maintains a volume inventory for each automated library. The volume inventory allows the device to provide maximum automation. The volume inventory is created when you check media volumes into the library. Tivoli Storage Manager tracks the status of volumes in the inventory as either scratch or private.

A list of volumes in the library volume inventory would not necessarily be identical to a list of volumes in the storage pool inventory for the device. For example, scratch volumes may be checked in to the library but not defined to a storage pool because they have not yet been selected for backup; private volumes may be defined to a storage pool, but not checked into the device's volume inventory.

Managing Database Backup and Database Export Volumes

For database backup and database export volumes, issue the DELETE VOLHISTORY command or the UPDATE LIBVOLUME command to change the status of the volume. When Tivoli Storage Manager backs up the database or exports server information, it records information about the volumes used for these operations in the volume history file. The volume history file is discussed in detail in Chapter 24, Protecting and Recovering Your Server.


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