Hello Betsy,
 >
 >
 >   So, one way to help is turning caching off.

 Maybe, but most of the restores are concerning cached files recently erased
 on ADSM clients and satisfied without tape mounts..

 > A better way is to backup directly to tape by setting up a
 > management class for databases.

 In my previous post on the list I was probably not very clear but I did
 try this and it does not work either ... defining the copygroup destination in 
a Cartridge storage pool (3490) always leads to rc=157 ..
 >
 >   The application developers are trying to find better ways
 > to calculate size estimates in the mean time.

 The fix is quiet urgent for us : we plan to use ADSM to backup several GB DB2
 Databases and did not buy the disk space needed for temporary storage in case
 we do first a db2 backup database to /db2back/db2file and then dsmc selective 
/db2back/db2file ..

 cheers, michel