Volumes in more than one pool or subpool

This feature can be used to report and automate volumes in various groupings. While this feature can be useful in the Reporting and Automation components, it can cause confusion and lead to incorrect or failed allocations in the Allocation component. Therefore, the Allocation component supports a volume being defined in only one pool and in only one subpool. The Allocation component examines the SMPOOLxx and SMSPOLxx definitions from top to bottom (downward flow) and assigns a volume to the first pool or subpool that contains the volume. Other pools or subpools that contain the volume are ignored.

The Reporting and Automation components allow a volume to be defined in up to eight pools and subpools. (Put in mathematical terms, the number of pools in which a volume is defined plus the number of subpools in which a volume is defined cannot be greater than eight). If SMPOOLxx definitions are such that a volume is defined in more than eight pools, only the first eight pools in the SMPOOLxx member will contain the volume. Pools after the first eight will not contain the volume.

This restriction can be monitored by using the GPCNFG and VOLCNFG views. On the GPCNFG view, the Vols Dropped column displays how many volumes should have been included in the pool but were not because the volume had already been defined in eight pools. If this value is greater than eight, the pool name in the first column in the view is highlighted. In the VOLCNFG view, the # Owning Pools field shows how many pools in which the volume should have been included. If this number is greater than eight, the volume name in the first view column is highlighted.

The SMMSYSxx MAXPOOL parameter can be used to limit the number of pools in which a volume can be included. MAXPOOL=1 ensures that any single volume will be assigned to only one pool. For more information, see references to the MAXPOOL parameter Global pool parameters and in Reference for MainView SRM products.