Description of DRMGUI

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From Kris Buelens, IBM Belgium

DRMGUI   

DRMGUI is a CMS/GUI application. It allows to defragment VM disks. Defragmentation is wanted for example when you are searching space for a few large minidisks, or to make some disks empty.

As a user of DRMGUI, you remain the "master", you can tell which minidisk must be moved, and where it will be placed too.

Using a mouse, you select a disk to defragment, and point to a minidisk to be moved. DRMGUI will then obtain information about the minidisk: how full is it, who is currently linked to it, ...

To move it, select the Select New Place button. DRMGUI opens a new panel with the cursor placed on the smallest free area where the minidisk can be moved to. You then have some choices:

  • enter a new value for the minidisk size
  • select another place by putting the cursor on another free area
  • ask DRMGUI to search for another place
  • confirm the move request by selecting the Move button

Prerequisites

Besides the obvious need for VM's CMS/GUI feature, some other SW pieces are required:

  • DRMGUI uses parts of the DRM PACKAGE
  • We also need the DIRMAP module to produce the MDISKMAP of your CP directory. DIRMAP is part of the CUF feature, or standard in z/VM V4.2
  • DRMGUI uses Dirmaint or DFSMS to move minidisks. Even when you request that moves be done with DFSMS, a directory manager like DIRMAINT is required.
    • DFSMS is a free feature of VM/ESA and z/VM.
    • It contains a very fast mdisk move command.
    • But, it must be installed and requires some tailoring (you need at least to tell who is authorized to use DFSMS)
DRMGUI does not support minidisks on FBA devices (3370, 9335, ...)

Changes for 1.2

  • Refresh didn't work as the DRMGREFR GBEXEC was not shipped.
  • One can move minidisks with "automatic target space selection". That is: you don't have to confirm that the proposed place is OK.
  • Some other small changes. (such as better error handling in $DRM$ XEDIT).
  • It is possible to look at the classic MDISKMAP too.

More work is going on...