Patent ID: 7127388

Claim:
A method of interfacing a library management system software module to a virtual tape drive server module with the library management system software module resident on a host computer running an operating system (OS) and applications, where the OS provides services for inputting and outputting data sets to physical tape drives, with the services including channel commands for outputting tape mounting requests and for reading a tape, with the virtual tape drive server for receiving commands from the host to store and retrieve data from non-physical virtual tape volumes, and with the virtual tape drive server module for storing metadata describing the actual storage of the virtual tape volume contents, and with the library management system software module generating requests to cause the OS to issue messages and commands to the virtual tape drive server module to make the virtual tape drive server module status information available to the library management system software module, said method comprising: establishing a naming convention to identify differently named administrative virtual volumes for providing different types of status information; determining that the library management system software module requires updating of a designated type of status information; generating, with the library management system software module, a mount request including a designated name of the administrative volume that provides the designated type of configuration metadata; responding, at the virtual tape drive server module, to said mount request to retrieve said designated type of status information and build an administrative data set including the designated type of status information, storing said data set in a virtual tape volume, and mounting the volume on a specified virtual tape drive; generating, with the library management system software module and the OS, read commands to the said virtual tape drive; responding, at the virtual tape drive server module, to said read commands to transfer said administrative data set to the host for use by the library system software module.