We are looking into getting a SAN.  The more books I read about using TSM
to back it up the more confused I am.  I hope someone can answer my questions,
and there are surely more to come.

1.  In the Readbook "Using TSM in a SAN Environment" (from 12/2000, probably
    out of date), it states that LAN-free backup can only backup TDP for
    Exchange and TDP for SAP R/3 clients  (p.42).  Is this still true?  If
    so, will support for the TSM B/A client be available in the future,
    maybe TSM 5.1?

2.  LAN-free backup can only back up to tapes, but I can run SANergy to
    back up to a file then migrate to tapes.  Someone mentioned that
    SANergy cannot use AIX as the server.  Can anyone explain?  Does this
    mean SANergy cannot use AIX as the MDC or with this setup you cannot
    backup to a AIX server?
    We run TSM server on AIX.  Can I run SANergy MDC on another Win2000
    box that serves the disk storage pool to the TSM AIX server and migrate
    to a 3494 tape pool?  The Win2000 SANergy MDC, AIX TSM server, and 3494
    will all be on the SAN.

3.  The IBM salesrep recommends partitioning the 3494 so 2 tape drives will
    be connected to the SAN while the remaining 4 drives will not.  Those 4
    drives will be available to all the clients that are not on the SAN.
    Why can't we just connect all 6 drives to the SAN?  Non-SAN Clients
    can still get to them through the AIX TSM server.  Right?
    Can Non-SAN clients backup to a non-SAN disk storage pool then
    migrate to the SAN attached tape drives via the TSM server, i.e. the way
    it is now?

4.  Serverless backup can only be done with SANergy.

5.  Does the "server" in serverless backup mean the Exchange server
    and not the TSM server?  This is the impression I get from the redbook.
    Serverless backup moves the Exchange data from SAN attached disks to
    the tape drives, bypassing the Exchange server. Right?

server: TSM 4.1.3 on AIX 4.3.3 (will be TSM 4.2.1.9 soon, very soon)
SAN clients: Exchange on Win2000, AIX, SUN
non-SAN clients: Wins 2000/NT/98/95, SUN, AIX, Macs, Linux
3494 with 6 FC tape drives connected to the TSM server.


Eliza Lau
Virginia Tech Computing Center
1700 Pratt Drive
Blacksburg, VA 24060
lau AT vt DOT edu