The installation defines these optical volumes, which are not necessarily of the same device and media types. Pseudo libraries are defined without a device type. When operator-accessible drives are defined, they can be assigned to a pseudo library chosen by the person defining the devices. These devices can be grouped in a manner that best fits the needs of the installation (for example, physical location, device and media affinity, backup and primary objects stored together, and so forth). There is no limit on the number of pseudo libraries that can be defined within an active SMS configuration.
Pseudo libraries defined prior to DFSMS/MVS 1.5 are still supported. These pseudo libraries were defined as a collection of one or more operator-accessible drives of the same device type, and one or more shelf-resident optical volumes of a like media type. OAM continues to honor these old pseudo library definitions. Support for both concepts allows installations wishing to convert their environments to the new pseudo library concept over a period of time the ability to use their previously defined pseudo libraries during the transition period.
Your installation needs to determine the pseudo library to which an optical volume is to be associated. This determination is made either when the volume is ejected from a real library, or when a volume is labeled on an operator-accessible drive.
During OAM initialization, if a volume record is encountered with an associated library name that is not known to the active configuration (ACDS), a message is issued indicating that the volume is ignored and that the library must be defined to the configuration before the volume will be recognized. For a shelf-resident volume, the library name associated with a volume is that of the pseudo library.
Related reading: For more information, see Associating pseudo libraries and Labeling an optical disk on a 3995 operator-accessible drive. For more information on media compatibility and capability for optical drives, see Table 1.