This IBM® Redbooks® publication covers IBM TS7700 R5.3. The IBM TS7700 is part of a family of IBM Enterprise tape products. This book is intended for system architects and storage administrators who want to integrate their storage systems for optimal operation.

Building on over 25 years of experience, the R5.3 release includes many features that enable improved performance, usability, and security. Highlights include increased maximum cache capacity of SSD-based TS7700s, zTape Air-Gap option, CRC Check End-to-End of virtual volumes, and TS7700 RESTful API.

By using the same hierarchical storage techniques, the TS7700 (TS7770 and TS7760) can also off load to object storage. Because object storage is cloud-based and accessible from different regions, the TS7700 Cloud Storage Tier support essentially allows the cloud to be an extension of the grid. As of this writing, the TS7700C supports the ability to off load to IBM Cloud® Object Storage, Amazon S3, and RSTOR.

This publication explains features and concepts that are specific to the IBM TS7700 as of release R5.3. R5.3 is supported on VED TS7770 only.

TS7700 provides tape virtualization for the IBM z environment. Off loading to physical tape behind a TS7700 is used by hundreds of organizations around the world. Tape virtualization can help satisfy the following requirements in a data processing environment.

New and existing capabilities of the TS7700 5.3 release includes the following highlights:

• A single Machine type of 3498
• Storage Expert Care services for TS7700
• Increased maximum cache capacity of SSD-based TS7700s
• Limited REST(ful) API support
• IBM TS7700 zTape Air-Gap function (FC 5995)
• IBM Lab Services for migration (for VED's) from FC 5282 to FC 5283 Advanced Object

Store for DS8000

• CRC Check End-to-End of virtual volumes
• Support for IBM TS1160 Tape drives and JE/JM media (introduced 5.2 PGA1)

The TS7700T writes data by policy to physical tape through attachment to high-capacity, high-performance IBM TS1160, IBM TS1150, and IBM TS1140 tape drives that are installed in an IBM TS4500 or TS3500 tape library.

The TS7770 models are based on high-performance and redundant IBM POWER9™ technology. They provide improved performance for most IBM Z tape workloads when compared to the previous generations of IBM TS7700.

Part 1. Architecture and planning

Chapter 1. Introducing the IBM TS7700

Chapter 2. Architecture, components, and functional characteristics

Chapter 3. IBM TS7700 usage considerations

Chapter 4. Preinstallation planning and sizing

Chapter 5. Disaster recovery

Part 2. Implementation and migration

Chapter 6. Implementing IBM TS7700

Chapter 7. Hardware configurations and upgrade considerations

Chapter 8. Migration

Part 3. Operations

Chapter 9. TS7700 Management Interface operations: Part 1

Chapter 10. TS7700 Management Interface operations: Part 2

Chapter 11. TS7700 common operations and procedures

Chapter 12. zHost console operations

Chapter 13. Monitoring

Chapter 14. Performance considerations

Chapter 15. Copy Export

Chapter 16. Disaster recovery testing in a grid configuration

Chapter 17. RESTful API

Chapter 18. TS7700 support for zTape Air-GAP

Appendix A. Feature codes and requests for price quotations

Appendix B. IBM TS7700 implementation for IBM z/VM, IBM z/VSE, and IBM z/TPF environments

Appendix C. JES3 examples and information

Appendix D. DEVSERV QLIB command

Appendix E. Sample job control language

Appendix F. Library Manager volume categories

Appendix G. IBM TS7700 parameter examples

Appendix H. Extra IODF examples

Appendix I. Case study for logical partitioning of a two-cluster grid

Appendix J. Configuring externally managed encryption