I have been looking for the end of service dates for the 3490-A20 and 3490-B40 in the announcment archive at http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/
I haven't found any reference to these devices in the announcment letters which suggests to me there has been no announcement of end of service for these devices.
As a check on my work, can I confirm with others on the list that I am both searching in the correct spot for this info and that finding nothing, there is no announced EOS for these devices.
Cheers,
Nigel Salway
P.S. Thanks to everyone who sent me suggestions for software capable of outputting to PDF and then emailing. Your insight was invaluable to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to list...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
At that site, look in the "SW & HW desc (Sales manual, RPQ)" area for "3490*".
You'll get to:
Bob
Adolph Kahan
GlassHouse Systems Inc.
416-229-2950 Ext 304
Dear Friends,
Cheers,
Nigel Salway
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature
database 4859 (20100211) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
Our concern was 2 fold and why we have purchased an SL8500 with 9840D
tape drives with a VSM from Oracle/SUN/STK.
Having to go on time and materials contracts and Joe's Garage closing
and NOT being able to get part at 2 a.m. in the morning.
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@bama.ua.edu] On
Behalf Of Nigel Salway
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 2:51 PM
To: IBM-...@bama.ua.edu
Subject: End of service for 3490-A20 and 3490-B40
1. It is money waste to pay IBM for support of the drives. IBM does NOT
want to support those drives, so their prices are really high. There are
independent companies which can support those drives. If you want really
quick fix time, then ...simply use another drive as a "hot spare".
BTDT.
2. Of course there is no good reason to still use the drives nowadays.
Oh, there's one: one has STUPID customer who INSIST on receiving data on
the tapes. And one cannot convince him to start using DVD or cable. Or
one has "internal stupidity" problem.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
--
BRE Bank SA
ul. Senatorska 18
00-950 Warszawa
www.brebank.pl
S d Rejonowy dla m. st. Warszawy
XII Wydzia Gospodarczy Krajowego Rejestru S dowego,
nr rejestru przedsi biorc�w KRS 0000025237
NIP: 526-021-50-88
Wed ug stanu na dzie 01.01.2009 r. kapita zak adowy BRE Banku SA (w ca o ci wp acony) wynosi 118.763.528 z otych. W zwi zku z realizacj warunkowego podwy szenia kapita u zak adowego, na podstawie uchwa y XXI WZ z dnia 16 marca 2008r., oraz uchwa y XVI NWZ z dnia 27 pa dziernika 2008r., mo e ulec podwy szeniu do kwoty 123.763.528 z . Akcje w podwy szonym kapitale zak adowym BRE Banku SA b d w ca o ci op acone.
Just my €0.02:
1. It is money waste to pay IBM for support of the drives. IBM does NOT
want to support those drives, so their prices are really high. There are
independent companies which can support those drives. If you want really
quick fix time, then ...simply use another drive as a "hot spare".
BTDT.
2. Of course there is no good reason to still use the drives nowadays.
Oh, there's one: one has STUPID customer who INSIST on receiving data on
the tapes. And one cannot convince him to start using DVD or cable. Or
one has "internal stupidity" problem.
<SNIP>
Or one is an ISV and has customers who have problem #2 so you have to support 3480/90 drives, because the customer base still has them. And stop thinking z/OS only. There are VSE and VM shops...
Regards,
Steve Thompson
-- Opinions expressed by this poster may not reflect those of poster's employer --
It's still case 2 - customer decides. BTW: What's wrong with VSE and VM?
Don't they support any connectivity to PC? (Hint: PC usually has or at
least can have DVD drive...)
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
--
BRE Bank SA
ul. Senatorska 18
00-950 Warszawa
www.brebank.pl
Sąd Rejonowy dla m. st. Warszawy
XII Wydział Gospodarczy Krajowego Rejestru Sądowego,
nr rejestru przedsiębiorców KRS 0000025237
NIP: 526-021-50-88
Według stanu na dzień 01.01.2009 r. kapitał zakładowy BRE Banku SA (w całości wpłacony) wynosi 118.763.528 złotych. W związku z realizacją warunkowego podwyższenia kapitału zakładowego, na podstawie uchwały XXI WZ z dnia 16 marca 2008r., oraz uchwały XVI NWZ z dnia 27 października 2008r., może ulec podwyższeniu do kwoty 123.763.528 zł. Akcje w podwyższonym kapitale zakładowym BRE Banku SA będą w całości opłacone.
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of R.S.
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 12:03 AM
To: IBM-...@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: End of service for 3490-A20 and 3490-B40
Just my €0.02:
1. It is money waste to pay IBM for support of the drives. IBM does NOT
want to support those drives, so their prices are really high. There are
independent companies which can support those drives. If you want really
quick fix time, then ...simply use another drive as a "hot spare".
BTDT.
2. Of course there is no good reason to still use the drives nowadays.
Oh, there's one: one has STUPID customer who INSIST on receiving data on
the tapes. And one cannot convince him to start using DVD or cable. Or
one has "internal stupidity" problem.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
At some time it just becomes more cost effective for all parties
involved to move on to new technologies. There are a number of reasons why
maintenance prices go up as products get older. This generally falls into 2
categories; 1) The company has a replacement product available and would
like customers to buy that one. 2) Parts are becoming hard to get and the
skills necessary to service these products are expensive. If you want to
keep using these devices buy a number of them cheap and when one breaks
replace it with its spare, this should keep you going for awhile, and
probably cost less than you were paying for maintenance.
Just my thoughts,
Carl Swanson
Carl.S...@verizon.net
Mobile: 215.688.1459
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf
Of Schwarz, Barry A
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 3:12 PM
To: IBM-...@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: End of service for 3490-A20 and 3490-B40
Maybe it doesn't happen in your industry but some of us sell products whose
life span is measured in decades. Abandoning one in the middle will not get
you much repeat business. It is also pretty much guaranteed to scare away
any new customers. (How many Apple II customers ever bought a Mac?) You
can generate more good will supporting "obsolete" configurations than any PR
department ever could, even when the support is minimal. The fact that IT
mutates fast is just one (frequently negligible) factor in the decisions
customers using these products must make.
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf
Of R.S.
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 12:03 AM
To: IBM-...@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: End of service for 3490-A20 and 3490-B40
Just my пїЅ0.02:
<SNIPPAGE>
I understand that set of reasons for dumping the big units. But when one
can obtain SCSI based 3480/90 drives (or even 6250 BPI reel to reel
drives!), it becomes obvious that there is a market or need for these.
So, it would seem that IBM would/could purchase some kind of replacement
and "brand it" and make it available rather than dumping this entirely.
But then, look at the kill of PSI by acquisition. The "new" demand for
the low end media and support (which I would go to the SCSI drive makers
for FLEX and/or PSI systems) is terminated by this. This also forces all
IBM SCP customers to keep moving up in hardware or quit.
Notice that these 3480/90 type SCSI based drives are available to *nix,
Windows, etc. systems. There seems to be some demand for this technology
(as I was saying in an earlier post about "End of service for 3490-A20
and 3490-B40 -- Small Twist") else this market would have dried up and
died.
The only headache here is connecting these SCSI drives to a z/x box
because the controllers have to now have a SCSI backend (IBM is already
doing it, look at the ATLs and the fact that they are using SCSI drives
internally).
Regards,
Steve Thompson
-- Opinions expressed by this poster may not reflect the opinion(s) held
by poster's employer --
Consider: 1000's of 3490 carts of archived data that won't completely
cycle out for another 5 to 10 years. Although we tend to revisit the
issue every year, so far we still judge it cheaper to maintain (by non
IBM) a few 3490 drives to provide access capability rather than expend
scarce resources and manpower to migrate existing 3490 carts to another
media when there is a very low likelihood those tapes will need to be
read before eventual scratching of the datasets.
It is more valid to claim that new datasets shouldn't be created on
physical 3490 cartridges.
--
Joel C. Ewing, Fort Smith, AR jREMOVEc...@acm.org
It is more valid to claim that new datasets shouldn't be created on
physical 3490 cartridges.
-----------------------------------<unsnip>------------------------------------
My former employers shifted completely off the mainframe onto a
"distributed" network of Sun equipment several years ago. One of the
major projects was to copy all 3480/3490 datasets to DVD for archival
purposes. (Dept. of Commerce rules require that most of the data be
retained to 10 years.) While the effort was rather time-consuming, it
required no great expertise, so we hired a temp to do it. The project
took about 8 months for 30,000 tapes, mostly of small datasets of 3-4 MB
of data.
Rick
-----
Worst penalty for bigamy: two mothers-in-law.
I don't get it. I understand that customer decides - that's why I put it
as an exception. However you wrote about products lifespan - WHAT
PRODUCTS? TAPES? This is a message to HW and media producers, not the
users. A user of tapes can use it for the following purposes:
a) Backup, etc. New faster and cheaper (in terms of TCO) drives are
around. Jaguar drive costs approx. 5000USD.
b) Archive. Bad idea to keep archival data on fading technology. Lately
I've been in some trouble when trying to read some 5.25" diskettes. I
also keep some 8" - no chance to find working drive and read them! The
same will apply to 3490E drives. Not today, not next year, but we're
talking here about archives.
c) Media interchange. You can simply start using more contemporary media
(common format required). It can be still some tape, or - if you want it
cheap - DVDs. DVD costs close to nothing, both media and drives. I don't
recommend it for backup (some exceptions could apply) or archiving, but
for data distribution - that's quite good media! IMHO this is the most
common usage of ancient tape formats, especially by software vendors.
d) Other purposes, IMHO irrelevant to the discussion.
BTW: Barry - your argumentation can be used in context of reel tapes or
punched cards. The same words.
Carl: 100% agreed. In fact you mentioned why it is good reason to get
rid of the 3490E's
John: BTDT. It took me YEARS to get rid of the 3490E's. I wasn't in
hurry - few of my drives were under support, first I started writing new
datasets to new media, then started slow, semi-automated process of
copying data. At the end started another slow process of erasing the
media. Now I'm happy user of not-supported-for-years, and in fact not
needed, but still working 3490Es. And few thousand of clean carts.
Oh, working in another shops I managed transition from much more
contemporary technologies to current/competition ones. I always
recommend that should be long-term process. It easier.
Rick: IMHO it is very bad idea to keep archives on DVDs. DVD media are
really unreliable, especially when getting old. I would consider any
other tape (LTO4, Jaguar, T10000) or MO media as the most reliable.
Regards
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
--
BRE Bank SA
ul. Senatorska 18
00-950 Warszawa
www.brebank.pl
Sąd Rejonowy dla m. st. Warszawy
XII Wydział Gospodarczy Krajowego Rejestru Sądowego,
nr rejestru przedsiębiorców KRS 0000025237
NIP: 526-021-50-88
Według stanu na dzień 01.01.2009 r. kapitał zakładowy BRE Banku SA (w całości wpłacony) wynosi 118.763.528 złotych. W związku z realizacją warunkowego podwyższenia kapitału zakładowego, na podstawie uchwały XXI WZ z dnia 16 marca 2008r., oraz uchwały XVI NWZ z dnia 27 października 2008r., może ulec podwyższeniu do kwoty 123.763.528 zł. Akcje w podwyższonym kapitale zakładowym BRE Banku SA będą w całości opłacone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>2. Of course there is no good reason to still use the drives nowadays.
Nonsense. The customer might have massive amounts of data on tape that
would have to be transcribed to newer media. There might be legal reasons
why the original media have to be retained.
The most I'd be willing to say is that I *see* no good reason to be
writing new data on media whose drives are out of support. I certainly
wouldn't bet that someone doesn't actually have a good reason. But it's
not my dog.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
>I would consider any
>other tape (LTO4, Jaguar, T10000) or MO media as the most reliable.
Never used QIC-80, have you? Fortunately I've never heard of anyone
attaching those to a mainframe.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> At some time it just becomes more cost effective for all parties
>involved to move on to new technologies.
Keep in mind the cost of locating and copying old media. The economic
factors are different depending on whether you only want to read or must
also write.
Then there are legal issues. Do the laws regarding retention of certain
data allow substituting a copy, or must you retain original media in som,e
case?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In <4B750B...@bremultibank.com.pl>, on 02/12/2010
at 09:03 AM, "R.S." <R.Sko...@BREMULTIBANK.COM.PL> said:
>2. Of course there is no good reason to still use the drives nowadays.
Nonsense. The customer might have massive amounts of data on tape that
would have to be transcribed to newer media. There might be legal reasons
why the original media have to be retained.
The most I'd be willing to say is that I *see* no good reason to be
writing new data on media whose drives are out of support. I certainly
wouldn't bet that someone doesn't actually have a good reason. But it's
not my dog.
--
---------------
This question might be germane but if I am off base please feel free to correct me.
Aren't there some tapes that (volume dump type) that are close to extremely difficult to duplicate?
My memory is fuzzy here but aren't there tapes that have a block size gt 64K and about the only utility to copy them is with the utility that created them?
Seymor is correct (IIRC) that there is a legal question about what is considered a duplicate tape. I am sure the lawyers will pipe up but with the privacy,medical,SEC and legal people and laws have extremely tough standards as to what can be considered "duplicate" ?
Ed
>My memory is fuzzy here but aren't there tapes that have a block size gt
>64K and about the only utility to copy them is with the utility that
>created them?
Yes. However, if you need the data then you should be keeping your license
for the restore software up to date, in which case you're also licensed
for the copy software. Or is there a case where they're separately
licensed?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
ISO position; see <http://patriot.net/~shmuel/resume/brief.html>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
My product happens to be an airborne data processing system built around an airborne qualified version of the System 360, yes the one form the 60s. The tape drives themselves are a very minor cost but nonetheless critical component. But the cost of a new model is still an insignificant percentage of the total cost of replacing an old model. Updating any component can cost a forest of paperwork. Google for technical order as it applies to aircraft if you are interested in seeing beyond the tip of the iceberg. And while you are at it, you can try to find out how long it takes and how much it costs to qualify a commercial tape drive for use on an aircraft. How many will perform while experiencing while experiencing -6g to +12g shocks or the constant vibration that makes flying so pleasant for passengers? (Hint - today's newest drives will be replaced by tomorrow's before the certification process is complete.)
Your view of how tapes are used appears to be limited by your commercial experience. On my system, it is the boot device, among other uses. I guess this is one of those other uses you consider irrelevant.
I'm glad my argument works for round reels since I still have one customer using them also.
And since my organization is a successful profit center, not a cost center, I think management will continue to let us keep supporting these customers.
By the way, up until a year ago, I also drove a ten year old car. My wife still does. And her recent response to the salesman who asked when she would upgrade was "When you pry my dead fingers of the steering wheel." People kind of expect longevity when they plunk down a lot of money and my product costs a lot more than any car.
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of R.S.
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:22 AM
To: IBM-...@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: End of service for 3490-A20 and 3490-B40
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In <333680....@web54605.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, on 02/14/2010
at 07:16 PM, Ed Gould <ps2...@YAHOO.COM> said:
>My memory is fuzzy here but aren't there tapes that have a block size gt
>64K and about the only utility to copy them is with the utility that
>created them?
Yes. However, if you need the data then you should be keeping your license
for the restore software up to date, in which case you're also licensed
for the copy software. Or is there a case where they're separately
licensed?
---SNIP------------
Yes you are correct but that brought up a slightly different (same) issue.
What about a vendor that(take your pick here) that will not support a new version of the OS you have gone to?
example: Z/os will not work on but the tapes were created on say pre Z/os days ?
(I cannot think of any off the top of my head) but then you have to keep a copy of the old OS around and IPLable on all the latest HARDWARE.
This jogs a memory chink as at one time I work for a company that took their old hardware and put it in the DR site and expected all new systems to be iplable on the old hardware. No matter what we told them that was not true they were depending on the DR site. I was glad I wasn't there when they found out the new OS would not IPL on the old hardware.
Ed