Hello everyone.

At the University of Ottawa, we are in the process of selecting some new
equipment to run our ADSM server.  Currently, we have about 90-gig of data
stored in backups.  The current server configuration is:

RS/6000 (model 520H)
3 x 2-gig drives (fast and wide)
2 x 1-gig drives
EXB-120 robot having 116 x 8mm tapes.

The clients we currently backup are:

20 unix servers
25 Novell servers
1 NT server
200 desktop computers, mostly Windows 3.1/95 and some Macintosh

I am soliciting suggestions (especially from IBM staff) concerning the
following issues:

1.  What number of tape/disk devices per SCSI controller do people suggest
one uses with the server, i.e., to maximize throughput?
2.  Are there any suggestions as to how we should organize our disk storage
pools and database?  By this I mean:  Are there any advantages in locating
storage pools and database components onto (A) the same physical disk (B)
their own physical disk, or (C) it doesn't matter
3.  Does anyone have information as to the internal structure of ADSM's
database?
3.  Does anyone make use of and/or have opinions concerning DLT drives?
4.  What do people think of MagStar or any other types of robotics?
5.  When running 2.5.1.x of the ADSM Server software on a SMP machine, does
it truly take advantage of the multi-processors?

Thanks to everyone in advance.  Peter.