FredD wrote, in part..
>   I am using ADSM on OS/390(v1.3) to backup 3 Novell Netware Servers (v4.11) 
> and
> for some reason I keep getting a negative compression percentage.  Can anybody
> tell me why this is happening and how I can stop it.  I could turn compression
> off completely but with the amount of data were backing up I would like to 
> keep
> it on.

Others will correct me if I'm wrong, no doubt, but this one is an easy
call.

Here's my summary of your situation:

   - compression is YES and compressalways is ON

   - backups seem to send lots of data, so sending less would be good.

   - backups take a long time; shorter would be better.

   - ADSM is reporting that the current compression settings are
     resulting in larger amounts of data to send to the backup server.

Also, consider that compressing data takes client cpu cycles and so
usually slows the backup, unless huge compression gains are realized.

So, the easy fix is to set COMPRESSION NO.  Expect your backup
times to diminish with less data transferred.  What a deal!

I generally do *not* recommend compress YES and compressalways
NO, because backup times are lengthened *SM first trying to
compress and send, then reverting to sending the uncompressed
version.  This would probably be somewhat worse than your current
situation.  Remember: on average, you already know that your backup
data is not compressible.

hope this helps, wayne


Wayne T. Smith                          ADSM AT Maine DOT edu
ADSM Technical Coordinator - UNET       University of Maine System