Now, that's cool -- getting competitive advantage from a product like TSM! I wonder if the API could be used to provide the much-sought-after "restore preview" function? My guess is no... I think I read somewhere that the API cannot access data backed up by the regular BA client.
RS Steven Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED] IS.INFO> To Sent by: "ADSM: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Dist Stor cc Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject .EDU> Re: Litigation! Wish 12/26/2006 11:58 PM Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] .EDU> Speaking of needles in haystacks, a one time colleague of mine was working for a company that analyzed oil seismic survey data on a large array of IBM clustered machines. He was a very smart cookie and understood the geophysics of it all (Hi Stephen if you are listening) The data came in on reels of tape and represented survey data from a surveyed line. A full survey consisted of a series of evenly spaced lines that mapped an area. He took this data and using the TSM API somehow stored it on 3590s (this was back in the old ADSM 3 days). The smart part was that oil companies could ask for an analysis of an area and give the coordinates that they wanted. His software would figure out which bits of data he needed from TSM mount the appropriate tapes and gather the data then feed it into the machines for analysis. This enabled his company to effectively leverage their investment in surveys and also provide the data faster to customers than anyone else could. At least that's what he told me :) The TSM API could be used to do a whole stack of this sort of storage work, but it is hampered by the lack of an API in something we can use, eg perl, python, or my current favourite ruby. I've taken a brief look at writing a library interface to ruby, but it is somewhat difficult - especially for an old COBOL programmer like me - why does everyone have to write in C anyway! Has anyone on the list done any work along these lines? Regards Steve Steven Harris AIX and TSM Admin Brisbane Australia