The present invention relates to a virtual tape apparatus and method of exchanging data used by Mainframe computers and Mainframe emulators.
In general, Mainframe computer systems have been used to process data within all sizes of corporations and government institutions where centralized computing was either a necessity or desire.
The term, Mainframe system, is a computer industry term indicating a multi-user, a multi-function large-scale computer originally designed and manufactured by a large company e.g. IBM Corporation. Mainframe systems are engineered to perform computations required for the enterprise business activities of companies, like small and large corporations, across multiple commercial and governmental environments, and are configured in a manner to provide centralization of computer functions rather than distributed.
The overall cost of such Mainframe systems has been increasing and as a result, emulation of the Mainframe environment on less expensive computers evolved to reduce software development life-cycle costs. The MF-Emulator is a product like the IBM zPDT or the open-system Hercules product emulator modules and they are usually hosted on a less expensive computer/operating system such as a low-cost personal computer running the LINUX, Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, etc., operating systems. The MF-Emulator product emulates the Mainframe computer, disk system H/W, network interface H/W, tape system H/W and terminal H/W. The operating systems running of the Mainframe are the same as the ones available for MF-Emulator. As a result of MF-Emulator being an emulator module without “real” Mainframe hardware attachments, the exchange of data, including program source files and test data, etc., is often time consuming, labor intensive and not secure.
IBM operating systems are both interactive and batch oriented. The exchange activities between the Mainframe and MF-Emulator usually involve large amounts of data. Using
Network file transfer programs like FTP require end-to-end software verification of the packets sent being transmitted, as a result, FTP latency (overhead) is extremely large. Network file transfer programs are also a very computer resource intensive on the Mainframe. The method of using a network file transfer program like FTP, requires several read and/or write passes across the data being exchanged there by, consuming time and computer resources.
Using
Eight (8) passes are made of the data along with the overhead and latencies of transmitting the data using a network file transfer program, most notably FTP and SFTP.
The Source and Target system are either paired as a Mainframe sending to a MF-Emulator, or as a MF-Emulator sending to a Mainframe.
The current method is time consuming and operationally expensive.
The present invention is directed to a virtual tape apparatus and method of exchanging data between the Mainframe and MF-Emulator that minimizes the time and the cost necessary to complete the exchange. It is a two (2) step process consist of reading the source data and writing the tape image file, and reading the tape image file and writing the target data.
The present invention provides a virtual tape apparatus and method that connects directly to the Mainframe's I/O channel H/W using a very high speed connection like, but not limited to, a Fibre Channel incorporating the NCITS FC-SB(8) protocols. The apparatus' virtual tape method emulates current Mainframe tape drives, most notably IBM 3480(4), 3490E(5) or 3590(6) tape devices, which are supported by the Mainframe operating system. The apparatus creates a tape image file in a file storage pool designated by the user when configuring the apparatus. This pool is shared with the MF-Emulator hosted PC.
According to the inventive virtual tape apparatus and method for exchanging data between the Mainframe and MF-Emulator, it is possible to minimize the time, expense and effort necessary to exchange the data necessary to reduce software development life-cycle overall costs.
Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail. However, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed below, but can be implemented in various forms. Therefore, the following embodiments are described in order for this disclosure to be complete and enabling to those of ordinary skill in the art.
Referring to
Here, the Mainframe system 100 is a computer industry term indicating a multi-user, a multi-function large-scale computer originally designed and manufactured by a large company e.g. IBM Corporation. Mainframe systems are engineered to perform computations required for the enterprise business activities of companies small and large, and across multiple commercial and governmental environments, and are configured in a manner to provide centralization of computer functions rather than distributed.
The virtual tape data apparatus 200 is computer system hosting the virtual tape emulation module. The computer is usually a small, commodity computer system. The term “commodity computer system” is an industrial terminology indicating a method for enabling hardware (H/W) and software (S/W) of different computer manufacturing companies to be linked together and is capable of being classified according to operating system, hosted applications or systems, and so on. The computer system 200 mentioned here is a small to medium-scale computer having an operating system, e.g., Linux, Windows, or so on. The computer system also contains one (1) or more channel adapter cards to provide physical connection to the Mainframe I/O channel for data communications, and one (1) or more network adapter cards providing connectivity the network.
The cloud image labeled NETWORK 300 represents any network capable of providing a data connection between one or more computers, i.e., the Network. The virtual tape data apparatus 200 and the MF-Emulator Mainframe emulator 400 are each connected to the Network to provide a common or shared data storage apparatus as a tape image data file storage repository.
Meanwhile, the MF-Emulator Mainframe emulator module 400 is hosted on a computer, notably an open system, commodity personal or server computer. The open system, commodity personal or server computer is industrial terminology indicating a method for enabling hardware (H/W) and software (S/W) of different computer manufacturing companies to be linked together and is capable of being classified according to operating system, hosted applications or systems, and so on. The computer system 400 mentioned here is most notably, a small to medium-scale computer having an operating system, e.g., Linux, Unix, Windows, or so on.
The data exchange module is located on the virtual tape data apparatus 200 and functions to provide virtual tape emulation, emulating current Mainframe supported tape drives, most notably the IBM 3480, 3490E or 3590 tape devices, and tape image data repository management.
The tape image data repository is a data storage apparatus that is shared between the MF-Emulator system 400 hosting the Mainframe emulator module and the virtual tape data apparatus 200 hosting the data exchange module. The tape image data is in a format common to the Mainframe emulator 400 and the virtual tape data apparatus 200.
Referring to
In addition, the entire process can be reversed with the MF-Emulator 400 being the source of the data and the Mainframe 100 being the target.
Therefore, the entire transfer process, source disk information to target disk information, can be accomplished with two (2) batch jobs, with just four (4) read or write passes of the data, instead of the eight (8) read or write passes previously described as “Current Method”, resulting in a fifty percent (50%) reduction in the amount of data read and/or written and the elimination of network file transfer program latency.
While the invention has been shown and described with reference to certain exemplary embodiments of a data exchange apparatus and method for exchanging data between Mainframes and MF-Emulator Mainframe emulator, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
U.S. Classification 703/24, 703/25, 703/27, 707/821, 710/62, 710/65, 717/124
International Classification G06F17/30
IBM, z/OS, z/VM, OS/390 and zPDT are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation
Number | Date | Country | |
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62288205 | Jan 2016 | US |