Bus-Tech's Mainframe Virtual Tape Library controller products present themselves to the mainframe operating system as standard IBM 3480/3490/3590 tape drives. They utilize a technology known as tape-on-disk to store and retrieve tape-based data to/from the Celerra platform for IBM System/390 and compatible mainframes.
The Mainframe VTLs use FICON or ESCON adapters to connect to System/390. Each adapter can emulate up to 256 IBM 3480/3490 tapes drives. Jobs/tasks running under z/OS, OS/390, or VSE can allocate tape volumes on emulated tape drives in the same fashion they would allocate a real tape drive. Tape management systems operate transparently with MAS to control tape volume allocation and expiration just as with real tape volumes.
These products are available directly from EMC and their partners under the EMC Select Partner Program.
