Tivoli's October "Valuable Support Info" E-mail

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Welcome to the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) technical support information update. This communication is designed to help you derive maximum value from your TSM software by providing the most up-to-date technical information, answers to frequently asked questions, and links to other key information. Please take a moment to read through the materials provided below. We are sure that you will find answers to many of your questions. This month's mailing has five main sections:

1. Frequently Encountered Situations and FAQs
2. News & Technical Flashes
3. Recent & Important Downloads
4. Upcoming Events & Live Technical Trainings
5. Problem-Solving Resources on our web site

You are receiving this notification because you are one of the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager customers, who have called for technical support in the past year.

To Unsubscribe: Please reply to this email and change the Subject field to 'unsubscribe.'
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Frequently Encountered Situations and FAQs

Title: TSM Journal Based Backup FAQ
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21155524

Title: Library fails with ANR8840E and ANR8418E
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21218357

Title: Replacing a damaged primary storage pool volume
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21219227

Title: Windows 2003 Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Hotfixes for Systemstate Backup
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21242128

Title: IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Administration Center Requirements
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21195062

Title: Overview - Tivoli Storage Manager Supported Operating Systems
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21243309

Title: Upgrade Instructions - Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) 5.2 to 5.4 or 5.2 to 5.3 Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21251665

Title: MustGather: Read First for Tivoli Storage Manager Products
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21263547

Title: Guideline For Selecting The Appropriate IBM Tape Device Driver for Windows 2000
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21268024

Title: IBM Ultrium Generation 4 (LTO-4) drive and drive encryption support
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg27009625

News & Technical Flashes

Title: URGENT Actions Required: Changes to Daylight Saving Time will affect IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Administrative Interfaces
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21254129

Title: Backupsets should not be used to store Data Protection client or API client data
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21268040

Title: Data loss may occur on TSM 5.4 servers when performing off-site reclamation of a copy storage pool and active-data pools are defined
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21268228

Title: Two security vulnerabilities exist in the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) client
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21268775

Title: Featured Documents for Tivoli Storage Manager
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg27009872Recent & Important Downloads

Title: Tivoli APAR notification page
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21177831

Title: Recommended TSM Client and Server Fixes
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21247179

Upcoming Events & Live Technical Trainings

Tivoli's Support Technical Exchange web seminars allows you to participate in live discussions on topics such as deployment, trouble-shooting tips, common issues, problem solving resources and other Support and Services recommendations.

To see the connection information for these seminars, as well as ALL Tivoli products just use the main link below.

Link: http://www.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/supp_tech_exch.html

Mark your calendars: Here are the current listings for the FREE seminars though December, 2007

10/18/07 TSM Backup Considerations with Nseries
10/23/07 Overview, setup, and usage of NDMP operations
10/23/07 Understanding TSM HSM for Windows

11/06/07 LVSA / Open File Support
11/15/07 Tivoli Storage Manager Update
11/15/07 Ask the Experts call in session: TSM devices for Windows
11/20/07 Installing the Integrated Solutions Console (ISC) and Administration Center
11/29/07 Tuning Disk for use with Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM)

12/06/07 Exploiting Disk Technology with Tivoli Storage Manager

Help us choose future topics for our calls!
If you have ideas for a future discussion topics for TSM or to report problems with viewing content, please send feedback to: isstte@us.ibm.com

Problem-Solving Resources Online

Visit the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager product support page
Link: http://www.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/IBMTivoliStorageManager.html IBM Education Assistant for TSM

Short, task-based audio and visual presentations on pertinent topics.
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21236711

Free IBM Support Assistant product plug-in for TSM A desktop tool to aid in your TSM administration.
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg24009958

Self help support info for new Tivoli Storage Manager Administrators
Link: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21212718

Complimentary TSM Concepts Poster & Complimentary Online Self-Paced Training Classes
Link: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=663&uid=swg21217663

Participate in the ADSM.org and ADSM/L forums:
Link: http://www.adsm.org

Backupsets & TCopy

OK, I am going to throw a question out into the TSM world and see what you people think. I was asked at work if a Backupset could be copied using the UNIX tcopy command? I thought about it and since Backupsets are independent of the TSM server I would think, in theory, it should. The only issue I could see would be needing to define the copy to TSM, since it would have no record of it. The benefit would be that I would not need to mount the tapes all over again to run the Backupset. The reason I ask is that a customer wanted two copies of a full backup of a server to archive forever. Anyone ever tried it, any theories? They are all welcome!

New! Free training for TSM v5.4 ISC

If you use the ISC (even though it wastes more time than it saves) you can get some free training from IBM. The trainings cover:

• Installing the Admin Center
• Using the Admin Center
• Managing ISC users and TSM admins

If you click on this posts title it will take you to the page or you can click here to be taken directly to the IBM Education Assistant webpage.

TSM 5.1 Flash!

This flash was posted by IBM on Sept. 25, 2007:

Customers running IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) 5.1.6 Windows, HP, Sun, AIX and Linux and using devices other than 3570, 3590, or IBM LTO may have problems with the automatic labeling of tapes by the TSM server.

You can click on the title of this post to see the IBM page.

Table Of Contents Added

I added a Table Of Contents widget on the left toolbar for you to easily list all the post since the site began. The TOC is sortable by clicking on the header of each column. Hope it adds to your experience with the site. If there is something you would like see on the site let me know and I'll see what I can do to accommodate your request.

TSM Client Install Help

I found a good set of How-To's and documentation from IBM while looking for client overviews of installing the TSM client on UNIX platforms. It is an IBM Education Assistant covering installation, migration, and upgrading. It's always been part of the Infocenter but I never noticed it. Duh! There is a nice slide show walk-through covering installation of the TSM client on different platforms. Also some PDF's and even a Silent Install how-to. The main page can be found here and the installation help can be found here.

Data DeDuplication - Been There Done That!

I just got off a pretty good NetApp webcast covering their VTL and FAS solutions. One of the items they discussed was the data deduplication feature with their NAS product. When the IBM rep spoke up they discussed TSM's progressive backup terminology and I find it interesting to contrast TSM's process with the growing segment of disk based storage that is the deduplication feature. The feature really helps save TONS of space with the competing backup tools since they usually follow the FULL+INC model causing them to backup files even when they haven't changed. Here deduplication saves them room by removing the duplicate unchanged files, but this shows how superior TSM is, in that it doesn't require this kind of wasted processing. What would be interesting is to see how much space is saved in redundant OS files, but that is still minor compared to the weekly full process that wastes so much space.

This brings us to the next item, disk based backup. This is definitely going to grow over time, but costs are going to have to come down for it to fully replace tape. The two issues I see with disk only based backups is in DRM/portability and capacity/cost. If you cannot afford to have duplicate sites with the data mirrored then you are left having to use a tape solution for offsite storage. Also with portability disk can be an issue. For example we are migrating some servers from one data center to another and we used the export/import feature. We have also moved TSM tapes from one site to another and rebuilt the TSM environment. To do this with disk is a little more time consuming, you would need the same disk solution and the network capacity to mirror the data (time consuming on slow connection) or have to move the whole hardware solution. Tape in this scenario is a lot easier to deal with. Now when it comes to capacity vs. cost there is a definite difference that will keep many on tape for years to come. Many customers want long term retention of their data, say 30+ days for inactive files and TDP backups (sometimes longer with e-mail and SARBOX data). So what is the cost comparison for that type of disk retention (into the PB) compared to tape. Currently it's no contest and tape wins in the cost vs. capacity realm, but hopefully that can someday change. So if any of you have disk based solutions or VTL solutions chime in I'd like to hear what you have to say and how it's worked for you.