Allowing or preventing allocation from using an offline tape device

Use the following form of the VARY command to allow or prevent offline tape devices from being eligible for use by Allocation.

 
V {(devspec[,devspec]...)},{AVAILABLE|AVAIL    }
  {devspec               } {UNAVAILABLE|UNAVAIL}

devspec

devspec is one of the following:

[/]devnum: The device number of an I/O device.
[/]lowdevnum-[/]highdevnum: lowdevnum is the device number of an I/O device that is the lower bound of a range of device numbers. highdevnum is the device number of an I/O device that is the upper bound of the range.

The various types of devspec can be specified in any combination. If you specify only one devspec, you do not need to enter the parentheses.

A device number is 3 or 4 hexadecimal digits, optionally preceded by a slash (/).

AVAILABLE or AVAIL

The specified device or devices are marked available for allocation.

UNAVAILABLE or UNAVAIL

The specified device or devices are marked unavailable and cannot be used by MVS™ Allocation for device requests.

Note:

Using VARY xxxx, UNAVAILABLE causes MVS Device Allocation and DDR SWAP processing to ignore the offline device when selecting a device for use by a program. Thus, operators see fewer devices in the IEF877E message. More failed allocations for subsystems do not allow Recovery Allocation in environments that are already device constrained.
To display the devices in the UNAVAILABLE state, use the D U, TAPE, UNAVAIL command.