Does the TSM client ever give up when its performing a scheduled backup and
it loses contact with the TSM server? It doesn't seem so..

Server - TSM 3.7.3 on AIX 4.3.3
client - NT4 with TSM 3.7.2

Created a schedule with a 30 minute window. The client started it's backup
in that 30 minute window as expected. On purpose (to see how TSM would
handle it) we unplugged the RJ45 from the TSM server about 5 minutes into
the backup.

What we wanted to see is since the client runs a pre schedule command that
shuts down the database, if during the backup the client lost network
connectivity with the TSM server, would it time out and start the database
back up on it's own? It seems not..

After unplugging the TSM server from the network, the client begins
generating TCP errors in dsmerror.log. The sessions time out on the server
side and the server closes them (after 15 minutes). The TSM server also
eventually flags the schedule as failed. But this is where it gets weird.
After about 45 minutes the client was still sitting there generating TCP
errors and wouldn't give up. I figured once it got past 15 minutes and
outside it's backup window it would give up. It didn't.. Even more strange
we eventaully about an hour after running this, decided to plug the TSM
server back into the network. Despite the fact that the server had marked
the backup as failed, the client immediately resumed sending data to the
server as if nothing ever went wrong. And the TSM server let it!

This is a problem.. if the TSM server ever loses connection to the network i
could have any number of servers with shut down applications until someone
picks up on all this. What borught all this up in the first place is we lost
DNS a few weeks ago, creating a situation such as the above. The place was a
mess until we went around cancelling backups and restarting applications.
Why doesnt the client give up if it can't talk to the server? You'd think it
would eventually..

will it ever give up?

Gerald Wichmann
Sansia System Solutions