METHOD FOR VERIFYING AVAILABILITY OF DATA SPACE IN VIRTUAL TAPE SYSTEM

摘要

A method for verifying availability of reusable data space on a selected virtual scratch tape in a virtual tape system utilizes volume label information routinely maintained in an external tape inventory management arrangement to generate labels separate from the actual volume labels stored on a corresponding tape. The volume labels are generated in a format compatible for input to an external tape management system after the selected virtual scratch tape has been mounted on a virtual tape drive. The "on-the-fly" generation of the separate volume labels based on preexisting label information allows the present invention to significantly reduce processing time and needless data transfers typically required to verify whether a scratch tape can in fact be reused, thereby increasing overall efficiency in data storage management and storage space utilization.