Thanks to all who responded to my inquiry.

All your comments were valid, and I especially liked Nick Cassimatis point
about TSM DB backups spanning multiple volumes.

The main point of my question was to gather a survey of database sizes out
there, so I'm happy to keep seeing responses come in on that.

Obviously as people go beyond a defined SLA for maximum time to restore the
TSM environment then a second server is justified.  Those of us who have no
formal SLA's have to make a judgement call.

My only hope is that Tivoli is working towards enhancing the performance
and capabilities for backing up TSM's database (multi-threaded perhaps?),
just as the TDP agents do for our other business systems. Might we assume
they are lacking incentive due to the possibility that such an enhancement
could result in fewer server license sales? ;-)

Are any TSM developers listening aware of something to look forward to in
this area?

Thanks, and have a good weekend!

Scott.

At 10:56 AM 4/3/02 -0600, you wrote:
>80 GB is in the range of what I think of as "barely manageable" on your
>average midrange Unix computer (IBM H80, Sun E450).  I know folks run
>bigger DBs (somebody's got one in excess of 160GB) but you need
>substantial server hardware and very fast disks.
>
>_____________________________
>William Mansfield
>Senior Consultant
>Solution Technology, Inc
>
>
>
>
>
>Scott McCambly <mccambly AT ATTCANADA DOT CA>
>Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
>04/03/2002 11:08 AM
>Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"
>
>
>        To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>        cc:
>        Subject:        TSM database maximum recommended size
>
>
>Hello all,
>
>Our data storage requirements have been driving our TSM database usage to
>new heights, and we are looking for some references to "just how big is
>too
>big" in order to help build a business case for deploying additional
>servers.
>
>Our current TSM database is 86.5GB and although backup and restore
>operations are running fine, database management tasks are becoming
>painfully long.  I personally think this database size is "too big".  What
>are your thoughts?
>How many sites are running with databases this large or larger? On what
>hardware?
>
>IBM/Tivoli's maxiumum size recommendations seem to grow each year with the
>introduction of more powerful hardware platforms, but issues such as
>single
>threaded db backup and restore continue to pose problems to unlimited
>growth.
>
>Any input would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Scott.
>Scott McCambly
>AIX/NetView/ADSM Specialist - Unopsys Inc.  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
>(613)799-9269
>
>
Scott McCambly
AIX/NetView/ADSM Specialist - Unopsys Inc.  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
(613)799-9269