Q: What can I do with Imation Media Performance Manager?

Imation Media Performance Manager is a tool running as a client/server subsystem for monitoring and recording data related to tape volume and drive error performance in real time and over time. This information may be used to ensure data integrity, predict the reliability of cartridge tapes and drives, and can help users identify, predict, and recover from failures due to error performance in cartridge drives and media.

Imation Media Performance Manager encourages users to customize the PC graphical user interface and views to quickly obtain routinely needed information. Users can save these specific, customized views as User-Defined Views for quick, easy point-and-click access.

The Toolbar contains buttons or icons which provide easy, point-and-click access to the most commonly used menu commands, which are also available through pull-down menus. To view an object, the user can just point and click on a button. Once opened, the view may be customized through Display, Filter, and Sort actions to only request, collect and display those error performance parameters that are critical to the user. Tape volume exception reports ("pull-lists") are easily created using Filter actions to display tape volumes exceeding error thresholds.

An object view displays error performance information in interactive color tables that may be manipulated to optimize the format in which the information is displayed. Object views may be printed, saved as comma delimited ASCII files on the PC for use in popular desktop applications such as Microsoft Access™, or saved as sequential files allocated on the MVS host with either partial or full record sizes.

Graphs of object views that provide detailed tape volume and drive error performance information may be created quickly and easily, providing easy-to-read graphic illustrations of library performance. Graphs may be created utilizing any one or combination of monitored parameters, i.e. average megabytes written per temporary write error by tape volume VOLSER range.

Within any tape volume object view, the user can directly access the Computer Associates CA-1™ Tape Management Catalog (TMC) record for a selected tape volume and, if necessary, flag the tape as bad.

The real time component of Imation Media Performance Manager, VolumeView, provides immediate access to tape volume and drive error performance information...anytime. By clicking on a button, the user can obtain detailed error performance information for any tape volume that has incurred a permanent or temporary erroràas the errors occur. The user can obtain a detailed error performance history for any tape volume that has incurred a permanent or temporary error.

Imation Media Performance Manager also allows users to monitor tape drive error performance in detail, even between cleaning cartridge mounts.

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