We have also been "burned" by this problem.  We opened an incident with IBM
last fall.  They originally gave us a fixtest which made it "work", but the
cure was perhaps worse than the disease.

The real problem is that IBM ADSM devlopment adamantly continue to insist
that AFS (and DFS) are "not supported by ADSM".  Perhaps by accident,
virtual mount points worked anyway under version2.  Now in version 3, they
do not, hence the problem Helmut refers to.  WE NEED A CLEAR STATEMENT OF
WHAT IBM MEANS WHEN THEY SAY "ADSM DOES NOT SUPPORT AFS FILE SYSTEMS."  If
that means today that it will not recognize virtual mount points, might it
not mean tomorrow that it will not even read the files?  We CANNOT get IBM
to make a clear statement on this.  In spite of the fact that IBM OWN
TRANSARC!

We consider this problem to be sufficiently important to impel us to study
the possibility of replacing ADSM by another backup/archive system.

IBM, ARE YOU LISTENING? Yes, I am yelling.

John O'Neall
Centre de Calcul de l'IN2P3
Villeurbanne, France

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU]On Behalf Of
> Helmut Richter
> Sent: mardi 16 mars 1999 18:07
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Incompatibility between ADSM and AFS or DFS filesystems
>
>
> Hello,
>
> may I please confront you with a problem we are having:
>
> A new bug (as we see it) or a newly discontinued undocumented feature (as
> IBM see it) in ADSM clients inhibits the use of ADSM in computing
> environments that employ the distributed file systems AFS or DCE/DFS
> unless the deployment of these file systems is restricted to AIX clients.
>
> Affected are sites that deploy AFS or DFS on non-AIX hosts that have
> also ADSM installed.
>
> The problem is that an archived file may or may not be retrievable under
> the name under which it was archived, and the "may not" case is currently
> the typical behaviour observed. A suitably instructed user may, however,
> be able to detect his or her file elsewhere.
>
> As the problem is modest-looking on the first glance but exhibits most
> calamitious consequences when the implications are considered, I have
> prepared an elaborate description as
> http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/ALESia/papers/afsbug.html (The name "ALESia" is
> temporary while "ALES" is being reconfigured; I will, however, take care
> that the URL remains valid for quite some time.)
>
> We consider the problem grave enough to consider ADSM as no longer
> suitable for sites having AFS or DFS installed unless the installation is
> ready to restrict themselves to the exclusive usage of AIX systems - for
> now and the future.
>
> If any of the readers has any idea how we could proceed with ADSM (we have
> currently 160 million files (= 47 TByte) stored there), we would be more
> than grateful.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Helmut Richter
>
> ==============================================================
> Dr. Helmut Richter                       Leibniz-Rechenzentrum
> Tel:   +49-89-289-28785                  Barer Str. 21
> Fax:   +49-89-2809460                    D-80333 Muenchen
> Email: Helmut.Richter AT lrz-muenchen DOT de    Germany
> ==============================================================
>