I use both SBT for Informix and SBT for Sybase... they are very similar to
configure and once configured, are not that bad. The downside to SBT for
anything is the support aspect. I have never had a support call for the
Sybase product but have had several for the Informix product and you log
the call with a help desk person who knows little/nothing about the product
and a developer who is in a very different time zone is responsible for
fixing the problem. The developer is not the person who developed a product
but who is responsible for band-aiding the product after it is released. I
had two open issues with BMC last year; one had to do with table extraction
and that problem was open for over a year. The other problem was within
BMC's code where they were not able to parse long file handles which result
from large dbspaces. All restores were failing when they got to large
dbspaces for this reason and I had to have Informix developers and TSM
folks hound BMC in order for them to look at their product as a culprit.
For 5 months my ability to restore a database was
zip/nil/none... We will hopefully be moving towards TDP for Informix in the
future just due to the support issue. The one ability that BMC SBT for
Informix had was table extraction and the ability to insert a table while
the db was warm. That feature apparently goes away when you migrate from
Informix V 7.3 to 9.x anyway...

George Lesho
System/Storage Admin
AFC Enterprises



                    Fred Johanson
                    <fred AT MIDWAY DOT UCH       To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST 
DOT EDU
                    ICAGO.EDU>             cc:     (bcc: George 
Lesho/Partners/AFC)
                    Sent by: "ADSM:        Subject:     Re: Sybase & TSM
                    Dist Stor
                    Manager"
                    <[email protected]
                    T.EDU>


                    03/11/02 01:01
                    PM
                    Please respond
                    to "ADSM: Dist
                    Stor Manager"






At 07:42 PM 3/11/2002 +0100, you wrote:


> > I also got a letter from BMC saying the Sybase support is going up some
> > ridiculous amount like 30%.
>
>   Well, that's good knews too, I mean, good to know. Another reason not
to
>   start with SQL-back track....
>
>   Thanks!
>
>   Cheers,
>   Henk.

On the other hand, we found that using SBT to ADSM (as it was then) was
faster than dumping from SYBASE to tape.  As this application continues to
grow, SBT to TSM still keeps the performance advantage.  In addition, SBT
also keeps track of intermediate log dumps and will do incremental dumps of
the system.  And version control is also very good.  But installation and
configuration may be daunting: none of our ORACLE users have gotten very
far with SBT for ORACLE.