Patent ID: 7685382

Claim:
A computer bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a processor to perform operations for a dynamic media format conversion of physical volumes stored within a media library, the operations comprising: recalling, to a cache, volume data in a media format f as stored in at least one source physical volume of a source media stored in the media library, wherein the recalling to the cache is triggered in accordance with a recall media format conversion policy, wherein based on the recall media format conversion policy the recalling is performed during a down-time of a media system that has the cache and the media library, wherein the media system has a stubless database management, wherein the dynamic media format conversion causes a conversion of a physical volume stored within another media system that has a stub based database management system, wherein in presence of the stub based database management system selected volume data is stored in stubs, and wherein in presence of the stubless database management system the selected volume data is not stored in stubs; automatically premigrating, from the cache, the recalled volume data in a media format f to at least one target physical volume of a target media stored in the media library, wherein the media format f is different in at least one aspect from the media format f; expiring the recalled volume data as stored in the at least one source physical volume of the source media.