Naming and labeling media

 

This information provides guidelines for naming and labeling your media.

When you initialize each media volume with a name, this helps to ensure that your operators load the correct media for the save operation. Choose media names that help determine what is on the media and in which media set it belongs. The following table shows an example of how you might initialize your media and label them externally if you use a simple save strategy. The INZTAP and the INZOPT commands create a label for each media volume. Each label has a prefix that indicates the day of the week (A for Monday, B for Tuesday, and so on) and the operation.

  1. You can find more information on the different save strategies in the information about Planning a backup and recovery strategy.

  2. You may use up to 30 characters to label optical media volumes.

Table 1. Media naming for simple save strategy
Volume Name (INZTAP) External Label
B23001 Tuesday–GO SAVE command, menu option 23–Media 1
B23002 Tuesday–GO SAVE command, menu option 23–Media 2
B23003 Tuesday–GO SAVE command, menu option 23–Media 3
E21001 Friday–GO SAVE command, menu option 21–Media 1
E21002 Friday–GO SAVE command, menu option 21–Media 2
E21003 Friday–GO SAVE command, menu option 21–Media 3

Your media names and labels for a medium save strategy might look like those in the following table:

Table 2. Media naming for medium save strategy
Volume Name External Label
E21001 Friday–GO SAVE command, menu option 21–Media 1
E21002 Friday–GO SAVE command, menu option 21–Media 2
AJR001 Monday–Save journal receivers–Media 1
AJR002 Monday–Save journal receivers–Media 2
ASC001 Monday–Save changed objects–Media 1
ASC002 Monday–Save changed objects–Media 2
BJR001 Tuesday–Save journal receivers–Media 1
BJR002 Tuesday–Save journal receivers–Media 2
B23001 Tuesday–GO SAVE command, menu option 23–Media 1
B23002 Tuesday–GO SAVE command, menu option 23–Media 2

Put an external label on each media. The label should show the name of the media, and the most recent date that you used it for a save operation. Color-coded labels can help you locate and help you store your media: Yellow for Set A, red for Set B, and so on.

 

Parent topic:

Preparing your media to save your system

Related concepts
Preparing media and tape drives

Related information
Planning a backup and recovery strategy Storage solutions