Savings by Deleting Unused datasets

swathykrishnan · New User Joined: 01 Oct 2010 Posts: 43 Location: Bangalore

Hi All,

We are planning to develop a tool which identifies all obsolete datasets.
By deleting these datasets its going free around 200GB disk space. Is there any benefit out of these? Will it do any monetory benefit for the company?

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:14 pm

That is a question that can only be answered at your site. If the dasd was purchased then the cost is gone; if the dasd is leased your site might be able to return the space to lower the monthly bill. Ask your site support group or site management.

swathykrishnan · New User Joined: 01 Oct 2010 Posts: 43 Location: Bangalore

Thanks for your reply Robert.
Since we are working from offshore Its quite difficult for us to connect with the site support to get such information.
We know that the DASD is leased. Could you please give us a rough idea about the saving if we can save around 200GB. Will it give a considerable saving for the company?

Thanks in Advance

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 2:45 pm

You, Your group, should talk to the people who know the contract,
once You know the terms of the contract You will have all the info needed to take a decision.

nobody here know anything about Your environment so the advice we can give will be pretty generic.

in general ( very very rough approach ) the cost of data can be split in two parts

the cost of storage ( depends on the contract )
the cost of managing it ( depends on Your storage handling standards )

getting rid of unused data will certainly save money,
how much we cannot tell .

daveporcelan · Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 5:26 pm

I know you are looking for a big windfall, but...

A 4TB external hard drive goes for $120.

This is 20 times larger than the 200GB you are looking to save.

Cleaning up unused datasets is always a good idea, but you will not save a lot of money on 200GB.

prino · Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 6:53 pm

vasanthz · Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 7:46 am

If you have DFHSM, then revisit the management class set up of the datasets. Then let DFHSM take care of managing the datasets.

The number here varies depending on the storage box,vendor,contract etc.. But I think 1 GB costs around $8- $10 if you buy it.

swathykrishnan · New User Joined: 01 Oct 2010 Posts: 43 Location: Bangalore

Thanks Enrico....
The info seems to be very pertinent.

swathykrishnan · New User Joined: 01 Oct 2010 Posts: 43 Location: Bangalore

Thanks Vasanth... Actually I was looking for such an information.

Bill Woodger · Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:18 pm

swathykrishnan, from a Mainframe perspective you should find out what your DASD consists of these days.

daveporcelan · Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 4:53 pm

vasanthz · Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:38 pm

daveporcelan · Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:53 pm

I understand what you are saying. I see that they may be more expensive due to this fact.

The price you mention is 250-300 times more expensive than consumer grade. That would be death to the mainframe.

The word on the street is dasd is cheap, so buy more dasd.

We recently changed our entire Tape system to virtual tape. Everything is on dasd. We have no physical tapes on site. If dasd was that expensive, how could we do that?

Now look at 200gb. What portion of a drive is that? How can you calculate the value of a partial drive?

Thinking there is real financial savings for 200gb is folly.

Just my opinion.

Pete Wilson · Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 9:06 pm

Mainframe DISK is expensive due to the Controller, not the disks. The controllers are an extremely substantial processor in their own right. It is silly to compare it to consumer grade. If it was too expensive then mainframe would already be dead; it isn't, and unlikley to be in the forseeable future.

In saying that a 200GB saving is going have miniscule financial benefit and there could be overriding risks in deleting it if you don't know the data very well.