ADSM-L

Re: Bare Metal Restore for Tivoli Storage Manager

2002-07-19 13:42:17
Subject: Re: Bare Metal Restore for Tivoli Storage Manager
From: KEN HORACEK <KHORACEK AT INCSYSTEM DOT COM>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 13:40:18 -0400
Richard,

Thanks for the current (from the horse's mouth) information and dispelling the 
errant rumors and conjecture.  Your posting should, in no way, be considered as 
a "sales offering".  In my mind, any "Listers" feeling that way, are pretty 
"shallow minded".  My fear was that support was lost and the product would have 
little or no value to us as we begin to install it.

Thank You

The opinions expressed here are mine personally and do not reflect the opinions 
of my employer nor my associates.




Ken
khoracek AT incsystem DOT com


>>> richard.harrison AT VERITAS DOT COM 07/19/2002 9:38:32 AM >>>
Dear TSMers:

My name is Richard Harrison and I am the Product Manager for VERITAS Bare
Metal Restore. I came to VERITAS with the acquisition of The Kernel Group
(TKG). Prior to my job at TKG I spent 17 years at IBM and Tivoli, the last 7
of which were spent working with ADSM and TSM.  Ordinarily I refrain from
participating in the ADSM-L discussions lest I be judged guilty of abusing
my subscription by selling product.  However, there have recently been many
questions regarding BMR for TSM posted in this forum that have either been
answered incorrectly or not at all.  In the interest of providing answers to
some of these questions I respectfully offer this posting.  If you feel the
post is inappropriate, please accept my apologies in advance.  I am only
trying to clear up some misconceptions.

There are two primary topics I'd like to discuss:
1) What does TSM have in the way of automated system recovery or bare metal
restore?
2) What is the current status of the BMR for TSM product?

Topic 1
At various times in the history of ADSM/TSM system recovery or bare metal
recovery solutions have been available from IBM/Tivoli.  In the ADSM 3.1
timeframe there was a tool called the "ADSM Standalone Disk Image Dump and
Restore Utility".  In the TSM 3.7 timeframe there was the "Tivoli Data
Protection for Workgroups" product.  Both offerings were Windows recovery
tools that stored system image backups and allowed recovery by booting from
floppy disk and recovering the images.  Neither are available currently.

As has been noted on this list the topic of system or disaster recovery has
been addressed procedurally in IBM Redbooks, most notably SG24-6141-00
"Deploying the Tivoli Storage Manager Client in a Windows 2000 Environment"
and SG24-4880-00 "ADSM Client Disaster Recovery: Bare Metal Restore".  In
both cases the redbooks describe procedures that can be implemented to
enable system recovery using a combination of manual steps with ADSM/TSM.
Wanda Prather and other contributors on this list have posted more up to
date procedures at www.coderelief.com.

To my knowledge there are very few system recovery or bare metal restore
tools available that are integrated with TSM.  Other than the
afore-mentioned (no longer available) solutions above, the only one I am
aware of is Christie PCBaX. So far as I know the only TSM-integrated bare
metal restore solution supporting platforms other than Windows is BMR for
TSM.  BMR was developed by The Kernel Group to provide automated system
recovery using TSM to provide the backup/restore/media management functions
coupled with new (BMR) logic that would save machine configuration
information and use that information to automatically recover the
configuration, OS, and all files backed up to TSM.  BMR supplements and
enhances TSM.

Topic 2
Following the acquisition of TKG by VERITAS in December 2001, BMR for TSM
has remained continuously available to TSM users through a variety of
sources. IBM/Tivoli are authorized resellers of BMR as are most IBM/Tivoli
resellers and business partners. Negotiations are under way currently to
extend the reseller agreement.

While we have not yet released any product enhancements since the
acquisition (enhancements are planned, pending the outcome of the reseller
negotiations), we continue to provide technical support for BMR for TSM and
have shipped two patches containing defect fixes. The currently available
version of BMR for TSM is 3.2.1; it supports the following platforms: AIX
4.x, 5.1; Sun Solaris 2.6, 7, 8; HP-UX 10.20, 11.0, 11i; Windows NT 4.0
Workstation, Server, Enterprise Edition, Terminal Server Edition; Windows
2000 Professional, Server, Advanced Server.  The BMR Server components run
on AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX.  TSM 5.1 and 4.2.2 both are currently not
supported.  Both have been tested and each have been found to have blocking
defects when used with BMR for TSM 3.2.1.  We are currently sizing the
effort required to remedy these issues.

VERITAS has elected not to post BMR for TSM marketing materials on our web
site in deference to IBM/Tivoli's sales efforts.  If you want BMR product
information, please contact your IBM/Tivoli or IBM/Tivoli Reseller sales
rep.  If they are not able to help, please feel free to contact me directly
at the address below.  Additionally, product support information and patch
downloads are available at the VERITAS Technical Support site.

Respectfully,


Richard Harrison
Product Manager, Bare Metal Restore
VERITAS Software
http://www.veritas.com
richard.harrison AT veritas DOT com
(512) 433-3379
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