DFSMSdfp OAM is a functional component of the DFSMS/MVS family that manages a class of data referred to as objects for the z/OS environment. Separately it is also used in the support of tape libraries.
Features
OAM manages large objects, like compressed scanned images or coded data, in their entirety and contains no restrictions on the data in an object. Objects may be stored on disk, tape, or optical platters, and freely staged up and down the storage hierarchy based on SMS control parameters. Other benefits include:
Facilitates the management of storage growth
Improves the use of storage space
Reduces the effort of device conversion and coexistence
Provides centralized control of external storage
Exploits the capabilities of available hardware
Secondly, in the support of tape libraries, OAM uses system-managed storage concepts within the SMS component of DFSMS to provide the management facilities for the physical movement and tracking of tape volumes used within tape libraries.
Infrastructure benefits
Automated tape library management and its supporting hardware and software streamlines and automates the roles of the storage administrator, tape operator, and tape libraries, and uses the concepts of SMS to manage the tape volumes within the library reducing mount times and the number of lost, misfiled, or damaged tapes.
Manual tape library management provides the advantages of system-managed tape in a non-automated environment enabling a set of volumes and drives to be grouped together as an entity; a library.
Transactions/objects are processed more efficiently because OAM supports theparallel sysplex environment.
Objects can be migrated from DASD to tape to optical or any combination of these three media, providing the most cost effective method for meeting data storage objectives.
OAM provides an application programming interface that enables the storage, retrieval, querying, and deletion of objects.
OAM writes and reads objects on tape and optical disk, and it manipulates the volumes on which the objects reside.
OAM determines and manages where objects should be stored in the OAM storage hierarchy (DASD, optical, tape).
OAM controls the usage of optical hardware resources attached to the system.
OAM automatically creates one or two backup copies of objects.
