About 6 Virtual Drives limit for each JOB Step

dilipbiradar · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:17 pm

Hi all,

I had concatenated 10 tape files in one step using the UNIT=AFF parameter but the job displays following message.

JOB REQUESTED 7 VIRTUAL DRIVES.
THE LIMIT IS 6 OF EACH TYPE PER JOB STEP.[/b]

Please tell me what does the virtual drive mean?

Along with that when we provide overrides of other files in the tape files, the program runs fine.

Please let us know as I am stuck with this problem from a long time.

Thanks and regards,

Dilip S Biradar,

expat · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:09 pm

Please post your JCL to let us see what you have done .....

A virtual tape drive is exactly what it says on the packet - a virtual tape drive. It emulates a physical tape drive.

Data is written to a pseudo UCB which is routed to a DASD cache in the virtual tape subsystem, and when enough data is available to fill one physical tape volume the cached data is written to a physical tape volume, usually a high density one such as 3592.

dilipbiradar · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:56 pm

//STEP050.SORTIN DD DSN=&PQFI..&FFB..&SORTIN,
// DISP=(OLD,&DISPC,KEEP),
// UNIT=TAPE
// DD &SORTIN2,
// DISP=(OLD,&DISPC2,KEEP),
// UNIT=AFF=SORTIN
// DD &SORTIN3,
// DISP=(OLD,&DISPC3,KEEP),
// UNIT=AFF=SORTIN

expat · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:02 pm

I think I usually code UNIT=(TAPE,1) when using AFF parameters, although it is some long years since I've needed to.

Craq Giegerich · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:17 pm

I think you are violating a SITE SPECIFIC rule, check with you resource management people.