Hi,

We think ADSM is great!

Short answer is none ! But One would be nice. It really depends on your site!

We all lend a hand when required. This includes the IBM'ers who are pretty darn 
helpful when you are really stuck. Perhaps this is because we are very lucky to 
have the benefit of a pretty much homegenous environment. AIX, SOLARIS, IRIX, 
WINDOWS, NT and that is it all running on an AIX Server that also runs a stack 
of other stuff. 

We have a fairly small install of ADSM, at present around 30 large client 
servers and stuff. But our volumes are pretty big
. 
A 3494 ATL with more than 1000 tapes on-line, now under management of ADSM so 
whats that about 10 TB) plus Disaster recovery. We are lucky to have also the 
3494 fully stacked with 3590 drives (16 in all). 

We are also looking to add 2 - 3 Storage Teks in the near future

We have a data librarian handle all the DRM issues. I add clients as and when 
required and perform most of the ADSM specific stuff on the fly.

What makes us interesting is the way in which we use ADSM and the volumes we 
are now being presented with backing up. Each of our clients may have up to 300 
- 400 Gb to backup each night. Soon we predict the volumes will increase to 
more than 12 Tb on the same number of clients (makes for some interesting 
reading on how we are going to make this happen!!) Ideas please!

We also backup our oracle databases every 30 minutes and do a full oracle 
offline back up each week.

IBM set it (ADSM) up two years ago and we have done nothing other than feed our 
3494 ATL with tapes and perform the prescribed DRM procedures, and of course 
add clients and increase the number of pools and database size. It has never 
missed a beat ! or caused us headache. In fact we hardly go near it!

Documenting your procedures is really the key to it all. The manuals are very 
messy, but the "REDBOOKS" are must have! .... Also, good IBM support people who 
know your installation and what you are trying to achieve. The people is 
Australia are great!

Because we so rarely touch ADSM and it does do the job very well it is very 
easy to forget how you fixed something or did something. Answer here is "write 
it down" preferably where everyone else can find it. Just in case you are the 
result of a Disaster !! 

What we do find is that ADSM can be a bit hard to move to if during the one day 
I'm geophysicist "mode", then have to write a few Unix scripts, the have to 
switch to ADSM mode. You need a split personality to achieve this. Perhaps this 
is why our site is a pretty good success. Users with split personalities !! 
hahaha

Most of our files are well, to the say the least really big. One file alone can 
fill a 3590 uncompressed. We can't use compression. Our business is Seismic 
Data which does not compress.

Basicially we have no-one looking after ADSM at all. It seems to look after 
itself pretty well. Of course we have some fairly computer literate people in 
house. Although if I had a better budget I could do with a System Admin come 
ADSM person.

We have a very rigid set of procedures to follow, everyone knows them, and we 
watch eachothers behinds !! So to speak.. !!

We also have an API using ADSM on a fairly near continous basis.

I am of the view that the whole reason for implementing ADSM is to empower the 
end user to do most of the work rather than increasing the number of support 
personell (My opinion only!) The software and robotics do the rest in a good 
install.

Hope this helps at least by way of philosophy.



Stephen R Pole
Operations Manager
Petroleum Geo-Services Data Management Australia
Level 4, IBM Centre
1060 Hay Street
West Perth WA 6005
Australia
Phone          +61 8 9320 9080
Direct           +61 8 9320 9081
Fax               +61 8 9320 9090
Mobile           +61 41 239 4435  (041 239 4435)
e-mail            stephenp AT prth.geobank.pgs DOT com

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