TSM 5.5 to 6.1 Video

If you don't already subscribe to IBM's TSM Information Update & Storage Newsletter then you might not be aware of the following video IBM has posted to their website. They have provided a video tutorial upgrading TSM 5.5 to 6.1. Check it out here.

TSM Server Scripts Sleep Option

I have been frustrated with the lack of a sleep command with TSM scripts for a long time and just today a co-worker sent me this link which I think sums up how we've had to get around the it within TSM server scripts. The WAIT=YES option is only good for commands that allow it, and is not exactly what many of us need in certain situations. Since this document's modified date shows as 7-23-2009, I will take it that there is no respite from the issue with TSM 6.1. Basically IBM recommends you break the script in two and where you need the sleep you have the script schedule a onetime schedule of the secondary script for X number of minutes in the future. It does work. I've use this process on some scripts, but you'd think they would have added a sleep option by now. So I assume when it's absolutely needed many of you resort to a regular shell script to execute tasks, any alternate processes than that? I'd like to hear about it.

TSM's VTL DeDupe Reclaim Problem

So a friend of mine sent me this link to an article from Scott Waterhouse's "The Backup Blog" that discusses a known issue with TSM not reclaiming VTL tapes when dedupe is in use. I would recommend you check it out if you are using dedupe in your environment since it looks like it affects TSM no matter what dedupe product is in use when you use it with a Virtual Tape Library. The problem is solved with release 5.5.2 or higher.

Still Looking For TSM Admins In Boulder, CO

Hello,
My name is Arjun and I'm a recruiter at Artech.

Artech has an urgent contract for one of our direct clients:

Job Title: TSM Administrator
Location: BOULDER, CO
Job Description:
Required Skill: TSM support

If you are qualified, available, interested, planning to make a change, or know of a friend who might have the required qualifications and interest, please call me ASAP at (973) 993-9383 Ext.3319, even if we have spoken recently about a different position. If you do respond via e-mail please include a daytime phone number so I can reach you. In considering candidates, time is of the essence, so please respond ASAP.

Artech is a global IT Consulting company with over 30 Fortune 500 customers. You may visit our website at http://www.artechinfo.com/ to learn more about us.

Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Arjun Dheer
(973) 993-9383 Ext.3319
arjun_dheer@artechinfo.com

Rosetta Stone for UNIX

Know AIX? Ever wonder what that simple command in AIX is on Solaris or HP/UX? Need to know what the command for tcp/ip management is in Linux compared to OS/X? Now you can! Check out this helpful website Rosetta Stone for UNIX. My boss passed this along a while ago and I thought I had passed it along to the community, but I cannot remember if I did. So, here is a great website for UNIX admins and those learning UNIX to help you transition from one vendor to another.

TSM Checkout and ACSLS Question

At Infocrossing we have a tape operations group and they handle the physical opening of the cap and insert returned tapes and removing tapes for offsite. Because of this I didn't realize (until I had to handle the checkout myself) that TSM is checking out my tapes by filling the cap and pausing, waiting for the operations people to take the tapes out, then resuming the eject. OK, normal process except I have two 40 tape cap doors. When an eject has more than 40 tapes I figured that TSM would use the next cap door when I leave a specific cap identifier out of the checkout command, but it does not use the alternate cap. Both caps are set to a priority higher than zero so I find it frustrating TSM only uses one cap door. ACSLS itself allows you to use 0,0,* and it will checkout to all available caps above priority zero, but TSM does not accept the *. So what am I missing here? Is it possible with TSM to use both cap doors and not have the checkout pause for the one cap to be emptied? I didn't see anything suggesting REMOVE=BULK is any different from REMOVE=YES. I searched Google but didn't fine what I was looking for, and didn't find anything on ADSM.org so any ideas? Here's an example of my command:

CHECKOUT LIBVOLUME LIBRARY1 REMOVE=YES VOLLIST=FILE:/tsm/logs/chkout.list

Whether I specify a cap door or not it only uses one of the two.

Technical Flash

This was in the TSM Info e-mail sent out yesterday. The last one is worth looking into since a bad System State backup can ruin your whole day.

News & Technical Flashes

Title: TSM V61 Server may crash due to exhausted system resources

Title: Backupsets Generated with non-IBM LTO Generation 4 Drives Can Exhibit Overwritten Labels

Title: Tivoli Storage Manager 6.1 Installation Failure on AIX 5.3 due to AIX prerequisite APAR check

Title: Incorrect Windows system state backups and restores with TSM 5.5 and 6.1 Windows clients