Sharing Drives On A Storage Area Network - IBM TS3500 Introduction And Planning Manual

The System i or iSeries Fibre Channel IOP-based adapter does not support D-mode
Alternate IPL. The Alternate Installation function is used to restore a system from a
Fibre Channel-attached device. With Alternate Installation support, the system is
loaded from a compact disc (CD) and directed to the Fibre Channel-attached
device for a restore from the tape that contains the saved data. The code on the CD
is only used to get the restore from tape started. All code and program temporary
fixes (PTFs) are restored from the tape that contains the saved data.
The V6R1 IOP-less (Smart IOA) adapters do support D-mode or Alternate IPL from
Fibre Channel attached tape devices.
When enabled in the TS3500 Tape Library, the Advanced Library Management
System (ALMS) allows for changes in the logical library and drive configurations
without taking the library off-line. These changes are not transparent to System i or
iSeries and IBM i or OS/400 servers that are attached to any logical libraries that
have changed. Any time that changes are made to the logical library or device
configuration, you must reset the associated adapter or perform an initial program
load (IPL) of the associated system to reconfigure the changes.
For additional information, see The LTO Ultrium Primer for IBM eServer iSeries
Customers available on http://www.redbooks.ibm.com.

Sharing drives on a Storage Area Network

This section gives guidelines for sharing drives with software and systems.
With Storage Area Network (SAN) components, the possibilities for connecting
multiple systems and multiple drives have increased. Not all software and systems
are designed to share drives. Before you install a drive that would allow two
systems to share it, check that the systems and their software support sharing. If
your software does not support sharing, note that Fibre Channel switches have a
zoning capability to form a SAN partition. For systems that do not cooperate, use
zoning to prevent the systems from sharing the same drive. You can remove zoned
partitions as you upgrade software and system levels.
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Chapter 6. Using the Fibre Channel interface