I absolutely agree! The administration of large archive libraries is pretty
lame. It dosen't get any better as the size of your library gets bigger. The
database just keeps getting bigger and bigger. File searches get slower,
corruption becomes more likely, etc.. It gives me the sreeps just thinking
about it.

I would love to see is some manageable means for displaying volume contents.
Being able to export the database into DB2 would be a start. You could then
use Visual Age/Gen to build front end forms. I'm sure there is some way to do
this yourself, i.e. write a program, but who has the time? I'm sure you could
also send more money to IBM for Redbooks on how to do it. We will probably end
up retrieving files and permanently archiving the files to CD-R, which ADSM
does not support.

A second thing I would like to see is a way to split up the database into
sections so that you could "retire" sections of the database. If the database
was split into years a person could search just the section of the database
required and not the entire database. Large sections of the database could
also be moved onto remmovable media. If this could be done to CD-R, where time
based degradation of the media is less of an issue, it would be great!

I realize these issues are not so important for backups, but at our site we
are archiving data at a frightening rate.

Reg's

Jeff Mathers
Computer Data Systems Manager
The Protein/DNA Technology Center
The Rockefeller University
New York, New York