Defining tape device classes
A device class defines a set of characteristics that are used by a set of volumes that can be created in a storage pool. You must define a device class for a tape device to ensure that the server can use the device.
Before you begin
About this task
For a list of supported devices and valid device class formats, see the IBM
Storage Protect Supported Devices website for your operating system:
You can define multiple device classes for each device type. For example, you might want to specify different attributes for different storage pools that use the same type of tape drive. Variations might be required that are not specific to the device, but rather to how you want to use the device (for example, mount retention or mount limit).
Guidelines:
- One device class can be associated with multiple storage pools, but each storage pool is associated with only one device class.
- SCSI libraries can include tape drives of more than one device type. When you define the device
class in this environment, you must declare a value for the FORMAT
parameter.
For more information, see Mixed device types in libraries.
Procedure
To define a device class, use the DEFINE DEVCLASS command with the
DEVTYPE parameter, which assigns a device type to the device class.