I have been reviewing the use of Virtual Storage on the i5 for some time now, yet I dont see many others doing much in the way of expressing interest in its use. The biggest problem I can identify is the requirements for a lot of DASD to store the Images on, yet my suggestion that a simple transfer program which would move the images off as soon as they are generated also seems to have fallen on deaf ears? Is this because people dont like the idea of using PC storage as a temporary store or they feel the process required to cut those images onto a CD would be too restrictive? I am still very interested in building a tool which will allow the use of the virtual CD images to create restore level CD’s that can be used to build the system from scratch. The LIC is a problem but using the IBM shipped CD should be sufficient for most users.
As I started to look at the possible uses of the save technology which comes with the Virtual images I did see a lot of problems with the way that IBM has wrapped up this technology. Trying to get to grips with all of the elements which make up the virtual technology was very confusing at first, in fact having not used it for a number of months its probably going to take me a while to get back into it. But once you have the principles you can achieve quite a lot with the technology. I have been asking IBM to build better API’s for the technology, the Save File API’s were about the same level when it was first introduced and now have a lot more API’s available to the developer to allow them to better manage and describe the data held in the various save files. The Virtual Optical and Tape technology doesn’t suffer from the same restrictions as the Save File technology so it should be a better choice for most application developers in the future once they open up the images through API’s. That way once you have the details you can use cheaper PC type hardware to store and manage the data while having full access to it through the ability to move the images between the PC and the i5 ready for a restore.
If you have a PC running any of the DASD types not necessarily SCSI you should be able to use the Virtual technology and save on data storage costs. Saving to the DASD gives a first level of protection against data loss but once there you can create another level of protection simply by copying to an actual CD or DVD. Virtual Tape doesn’t have the same capabilities so its harder to give that second level protection. The other big benefit of the virtual technology is the speed at which the save can be carried out.
I have the initial technology tested all I need to do now is get the interfaces built and management of the actual virtual drives and images put together before I get to a working application.
Chris…