Visara VI-5990 - Manual (Page 43)

VI-5990 Installation and Configuration Manual
707166-001 4-1
Chapter 4. Configure Tape Drives
Tape drives on the VI-5990 are virtual, and are grouped with a virtual tape controller.
Each tape controller (CU) corresponds to a control unit definition to the operating system
(CTRLUNIT in IOCDS). Each tape drive communicates over its own FICON subchannel
and corresponds to an IODEVICE definition (in IOCDS) to the operating system. Up to
16 tape controllers may be defined on the VI-5990, and up to 16 tape drives may be
associated with each tape controller for a maximum of 256 tape drives. Up to four
PATHs may be established to each tape controller, 64 maximum PATHs per platform.
The VI-5990 supports MIF on the mainframe, and as part of that support allows all
LPARs sharing a PATH (up to 16) to also share a tape controller and its associated tape
drives. Only one LPAR is allowed to access each tape drive at a time. Depending on how
you configure your channels to be shared, how you configure your control unit access,
and which devices are defined to an LPAR determines which LPARs will be allowed to
access any given tape drive.
To define Tape Drives, select the [Tape Drives] button from the main configuration
menu.