Add sort options to the ZDTAP entry

Thank you for your input. The requirement to sort the ZDTAP output is being accepted for Future Consideration. Based on resources and priorities, it might be a few years before the changes are implemented. In the interim, we suggest the following for the scenario that you describe using the addresses below:

The objective is to vary off drives with addresses 700-707 and 710-717.
1) ZTVAR D 70*
2) ZTVAR D 71*
- all free drives in the 700-717 address range will now be varied offline.
3) ZDTAP 7*
This displays the following:
COTD0002I 07.38.40 DTAP - TAPE STATUS

ADDRESS NAME SSU STATUS TPIND VOLSER FORMAT #BLOCKS LDR QUEUE
0701 RTT BSS SO 11 85 60 102017 38K2 0 LIB 0
0700 RTT BSS AO 00 85 60 102011 38K2 118539 LIB 0
0705 ALT BSS AO 01 01 80 100286 38K2 0 LIB 0

Drives 701, 700 and 705 need action before they can be varied offline, a suitable drive in the 600-617 address range needs to be selected for each of those.

4) ZDTAP Y 6*
This displays the following:
COTD0002I 07.38.40 DTAP - TAPE STATUS

ADDRESS NAME SSU STATUS TPIND VOLSER FORMAT #BLOCKS LDR QUEUE

0607 AVAIL
0602 AVAIL
0603 AVAIL
0604 AVAIL
0606 AVAIL
0610 AVAIL
0611 AVAIL
0612 AVAIL
0613 AVAIL
0614 AVAIL
0615 AVAIL
0616 AVAIL
0617 AVAIL

The first three drives in that range can be used.

5) After moving the tapes from 700, 701 and 705 to three addresses from the range shown then repeat commands 1 and 2 from above to vary off the drives in the 7xx range. Only 1 is necessary in this example, but 2 may be required if there were tapes in the 710-717 range.

When freeing up units, you need a unit address of another VTS. If I do a ZDTAP I get:
COTD0002I 07.38.40 DTAP - TAPE STATUS

ADDRESS NAME SSU STATUS TPIND VOLSER FORMAT #BLOCKS LDR QUEUE

0703 AVAIL

0607 AVAIL

0602 AVAIL

0600 RTA BSS SO 11 81 60 101290 38K2 0 LIB 0

0701 RTT BSS SO 11 85 60 102017 38K2 0 LIB 0

0702 AVAIL

0700 RTT BSS AO 00 85 60 102011 38K2 118539 LIB 0

0603 AVAIL

0604 AVAIL

0605 ALT BSS AO 01 01 80 102836 38K2 0 LIB 0

0704 AVAIL

0705 ALT BSS AO 01 01 80 100286 38K2 0 LIB 0

0601 RTA BSS AO 00 81 60 101225 38K2 202679 LIB 43

0706 AVAIL

0707 AVAIL

0710 AVAIL

0606 AVAIL

0711 AVAIL

0610 AVAIL

0712 AVAIL

0713 AVAIL

0714 AVAIL

0715 AVAIL

0716 AVAIL

0717 AVAIL

0611 AVAIL

0612 AVAIL

0613 AVAIL

0614 AVAIL

0615 AVAIL

0616 AVAIL

0617 AVAIL

END OF DISPLAY
Searching for a unit with a tape to be removed and at the same time finding a free unit on the other VTS is not very handy in this way (or do 2 entries with 07* and 06*).
After that 1 range is to be varied offline. This can be done by unit or unit ranges. To to this by unit range the sort may be very handy.

On a ZDTAP SORT it would look like this:

COTD0002I 07.41.58 DTAP - TAPE STATUS

ADDRESS NAME SSU STATUS TPIND VOLSER FORMAT #BLOCKS LDR QUEUE

0600 RTA BSS SO 11 81 60 101290 38K2 0 LIB 0

0601 RTA BSS AO 00 81 60 101225 38K2 205984 LIB 0

0602 AVAIL

0603 AVAIL

0604 AVAIL

0605 ALT BSS AO 01 01 80 102836 38K2 0 LIB 0

0606 AVAIL

0607 AVAIL

0610 AVAIL

0611 AVAIL

0612 AVAIL

0613 AVAIL

0614 AVAIL

0615 AVAIL

0616 AVAIL

0617 AVAIL

0700 RTT BSS AO 00 85 60 102011 38K2 134540 LIB 0

0701 RTT BSS SO 11 85 60 102017 38K2 0 LIB 0

0702 AVAIL

0703 AVAIL

0704 AVAIL

0705 ALT BSS AO 01 01 80 100286 38K2 0 LIB 0

0706 AVAIL

0707 AVAIL

0710 AVAIL

0711 AVAIL

0712 AVAIL

0713 AVAIL

0714 AVAIL

0715 AVAIL

0716 AVAIL

0717 AVAIL

END OF DISPLAY

In which case the ZTVAR D 700-707 is very easy to extract from the list...

The suggested procedure is based on the presumption that all devices within a given logical range are functionally equal. If the same task needs to be performed on all devices, as in the example of varying the drives offline to prepare for a microcode load, then what is the benefit of listing the devices in numeric order? How would the operators action be different if the devices were listed in numeric order as opposed to listing the devices in the order that they appear in the tape status table?

If there is a specific device whose status needs to be checked then ZDTAP can be done with that address.

No, it does not. Unit addresses may still be in an order not handy to use.

Using the addresses below as an example, the following steps are recommended to make sure that any drives in the 6xx range have been varied off from TPF:

- ZTVAR D 60*
Any drives that are free will be varied offline, leaving only drives that have tape names mounted on them.

- ZDTAP 60*
This will display any drives that are still online to TPF and have a tape name associated with them.
If the intent is to vary all these drives offline then all the tapes displayed will need to have action taken on them. We do not see the benefit in having this list sorted.

Repeat that same process for 61*.

Does this procedure satisfy your needs?

The operator is trying to find the units in order to vary them offline in groups to have the VTS freed of in use units so that MCL's can be applied to that VTS.

Can you elaborate on what task the operators are trying to accomplish where this information would be useful? Are the operators looking for the status of a specific drive? Are they looking for an available drive? We'd like to understand if there is existing functionality that would help you.

We do not use tape groups and Raven is in control of mounting tapes.

With not all units used, as you can see in my previous example, it is hard to find the missing unit numbers. Also, as you can see, we use 2 ranges, which are mixed when all are displayed. When sorted, it is easy to find the units missing in the range, or finding them already online.

Based on priorities and resources it is unlikely the TPF lab would be able to add sort options to the ZDTAP command in the foreseeable future. We recommend using tape groups and automount to structure your tape usage and reduce the need for adding the sort options to the ZDTAP command. Are you using tape groups and automount?
The lab would like to better understand your tape usage and what you are trying to do. Let us know how you prefer to have this discussion. Thank you.

If I use the entry ZDTAP 6* I get:

0601

0602

0605

0603

0615

0612

0600

0610

0611

0613

0614

0604

Where, if I do my proposal (ZDTAP SORT) it would show this:
0600

0601

0602

0603

0604

0605

0610

0611

0612

0613

0614

0615

0700

0701

0702

0703

0704

0705

0706

0707

0710

0711

0712

0713

0714

0715

0716

0717

Getting all utits in address order. An easy way of finding out if a unit is not online

The ZDTAP command has filtering options. The operator can filter on unit address and tape name and tape group name.

The ZDTAP documentation has several examples of filtering on ZDTAP commands. One example is to filter on unit address. ZDTAP 43* will display all tape drives that are varied online with unit addresses from 0430 to 043F.

Do the existing filtering options satisfy your requirements? If not, what advantage does sorting have over filtering?