February 2, 2004

South Tapes—After the Shutdown [Part 2]

As described in an earlier article South Tapes—After the Shutdown, any South system tapes that didn't move to Titan are currently being kept in the South system tape library for a while to give the tape owner time to decide what to do with it. There are three options for dealing with a "South system" tape:

•	move the tape to Titan
•	purchase the tape and remove it from the NIH Computer Center
•	release the tape

Moving Tapes to Titan

The Web Tape facility is still available to allow tape owners to move or release tapes. To purchase a tape, go to the Export Tape facility.

South system tapes can no longer be checked out of the tape library. Any South system tape that is currently checked out of the library will be charged to the owner and removed from the tape database.

Purchasing or Releasing Tapes

To enable the owner to determine what to do with a tape, all remaining South system tapes are being systematically inventoried by CIT using TAPESCAN. This will provide information on the number and names of data sets on each tape. Since TAPESCAN obtains the specifics from the tape data set labels, the information provided comes from the last 17 characters of the data set name.

Once all tapes remaining in the South system tape library have been scanned, CIT will begin to move to Titan any tapes that have valid data set names that match the userid of the tape owner.

For example, tape volume serial number 123456 with a single dataset named bbbbiii.master, owned by user bbbbiii, would move to a Titan tape. The new tape number would then be provided to owner bbbbiii.

More Information

If you have questions about your South system tapes, please call TASC at 301-594-6248, and ask to speak to a Titan consultant.