Ah, the questions of the universe.  I love these.

Policy Sets.  I would guess that we have these because somewhere back in
time there was a need to switch the way stuff was managed with a single
command.  Think about what you can do with this: create two policy sets each
with similar management classes.  Let's say we use one of sets of management
classes for month end processing and the other for normal processing.  We
could, then, with one command, activate policyset, change the way stuff is
managed.  This could even be scheduled.

Has anyone ever used this "feature"?  I doubt it.  We used to have a
practical exercise in our Level 1 TSM course that required this trick.  We
took it out as it was pretty hokey.

Hey, you can name your copy groups anything you want as long as the name you
choose is STANDARD.  This is probably due to the fact that the real work is
done at the management class level.  The name of the copy group doesn't
matter so fix it and give the coders one less thing to worry about.  Why do
I say the work happens at the management class?  It's at that level that you
"point" files for management.

Could this entire structure be simpler?  Without a doubt.  I joke that
engineers were responsible for developing this and their notion is why have
it simple if complex will do ( I should point out that I am an Electrical
Engineer by training so I can say this with immunity).

Once you understand all of this stuff, you're well on your way to being a
TSM expert.

I have no real knowledge about why this stuff is the way it is, but have
either conjectured this or made it up to suit my purposes.

Kelly J. Lipp
Storage Solutions Specialists, Inc.
PO Box 51313
Colorado Springs CO 80949-1313
(719) 531-5926
Fax: (240) 539-7175
Email: lipp AT storsol DOT com or lipp AT storserver DOT com
www.storsol.com
www.storserver.com