Users

22 July 2010

I'm working for a small US-based company. Our mainframe environment includes an entry level z10 running z/OS 1.10 and DS6000 disk array.

For 2010 we added several large accounts to be processed but had no budget for additional mainframe disk or tape storage. We were looking for a way to take data stored on tapes and store it on inexpensive server storage with seamless access from the mainframe.

I was familiar with MFNetDisk from the IBM-Main discussion. We downloaded the MFNetDisk server and mainframe components. Within a few hours, we were storing and accessing data from a test server as though it were residing on 3390 disks.

Within a day, the owner of the company authorized the purchase of a new server with 1 TB of storage. When the new server arrived MFNetDisk was installed on it. We immediately started storing and accessing data, via MFNetDisk, from the new server.

The server is running Mono under Linux.

The MFNetDisk controlled storage is SMS managed from the mainframe. In addition to customer data, we use MFNetDisk to hold the primary copy of FDR migrated/archived data. When migrated/archived data is written to MFNetDisk controlled storage, it is duplicated on 3590 tapes (secondary copy).

I saved the company a ton of money and allowed it to accept new business with a very small investment in server-side disk storage.

Now I'm their hero!