TSF - Simulation of Tape and Cartridge Units under VM/VSE
TSF (Tape Simulation Facility) allows the simulation of any number of tape and cartridge units for VSE/ESA under VM/ESA. The data to be read or written is stored in CMS members and regarded as "virtual" reels or cartridges. Those reels or cartridges can be mounted or demounted by JCL commands.

Advantages:

• TSF can be used as device independent. Without the need to have real tape units, "virtual" tape data sets may be created and - if available - will be handled by a tape management system.
  
  
• no real tape mounts are necessary; thus the prerequisites for an operatorless night shift are met.
  
  
• fortified multiprogramming is possilbe as the shortage of tape units is compensated for
  
  
• testing with tape files becomes easier as
  
  1.) there are no more real tape mounts
  
  2.) the tape files are stored as regular CMS members which can be viewed and edited by the standard CMS editor XEDIT