This chapter describes the IBM® AIX® Enhanced Tape and Medium Changer
Device Driver (Atape) for IBM tape
devices.
Purpose
The IBM AIX Enhanced Tape and Medium Changer
device driver is designed to take advantage of the features that are
provided by the IBM tape drives
and medium changer devices. The goal is to give applications access
to the functions required for basic tape operations (such as backup
and restore) and medium changer operations (such as mount and unmount
the cartridges), and to the advanced functions needed by full tape
management systems. Whenever possible, the driver is designed to take
advantage of the device features transparent to the application.
Data flow
The software that is described
in this chapter covers the AIX Enhanced
Device Driver (Atape device driver) and the interface between the
application and the tape device. For data flow, refer to Figure 1.Figure 1. Data flow for AIX Device Driver
(Atape)
