Re: Thoughts on Monthly Archives

Thanks, Andy!

As always, you open up the window of thought and different perspectives.

Shannon Bach
Operations Analyst
IMS Data Center Services
Madison Gas & Electric Co.

Andrew Raibeck <storman AT US.IBM DOT COM>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>

07/19/2004 12:45 PM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"

To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc:
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Monthly Archives

> For us, it is the beginning of the Sarbanes-Oxley overhaul. I ask those
same
> questions to people all over my company and their response?
>
> Well you (me) had better make sure that the data moves with whatever new

> Technology comes in!

My personal (not necessarily that of IBM's) opinion: this is a flippant
response to a valid concern, unless your responsibilities cover this area
as well.

>From a TSM administrative perspective, it is the TSM administrator's
responsibility to ensure that data backed up by TSM can be restored to the
same state it was in at the time it was backed up, plus other duties
related to the backup and management of the data, as assigned.

Being able to convert from one external data format to another is not a
function of TSM, and thus is not naturally a part of administering TSM. In
general I would say that resolving the issues related to long-term archive
of data belong to the owners of the data and the people who administer
that data. After all, they are the experts on that data and are therefore
the best resources for addressing these issues. Of course, in the process
of planning for the archives, the TSM administrator can raise these issues
(as you have apparently done) and contribute to the solution; but I
wouldn't put the sole responsibility on the TSM administrator. Nor was it
my intent to suggest that these were TSM issues per se when I raised them.

Regards,

Andy

Andy Raibeck
IBM Software Group
Tivoli Storage Manager Client Development
Internal Notes e-mail: Andrew Raibeck/Tucson/IBM@IBMUS
Internet e-mail: storman AT us.ibm DOT com

The only dumb question is the one that goes unasked.
The command line is your friend.
"Good enough" is the enemy of excellence.

"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU> wrote on 07/19/2004
10:09:16:

>
> For us, it is the beginning of the Sarbanes-Oxley overhaul. I ask those
same
> questions to people all over my company and their response?
>
> Well you (me) had better make sure that the data moves with whatever new

> Technoloogy comes in!
>
> They don't care if we have the software capable of reading this data
again.
> They just want to be in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley. And it is
starting
> to look to me that Sarbanes-Oxley believes in keeping everything,
forever.
>
>
>

>
> Andrew Raibeck <storman AT US.IBM DOT COM>
> Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
> 07/19/2004 11:25 AM
> Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"
>
>
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> cc:
> Subject: Re: Thoughts on Monthly Archives
>
>
>
>
> Some considerations for long-term archive:
>
> - Much of today's data, as it is used from day to day, exists in some
> product-specific format. If you were to retrieve that data, say, 10
years
> from now, would you have software capable of reading that data?
>
> - Even if you archive the software, will operating systems 10 years from
> now be able to run that software?
>
> - Even if you archive the operating system installation files, will the
> hardware 10 years from now be able to install and run that operating
> system?
>
> - There is a good case to consider carefully what gets archived and how
> you archive it.For instance, maybe for database data, it would make
sense
> to export that data to some common format, such as tab- or
comma-delimited
> records, which is very likely to be importable by most software.
Likewise,
> for image data, consider a format that is common today and likely to be
> common tomorrow.
>
> - 10 years from now, the people that need to retrieve the archived data
> will probably not be the same people who originally archived the data.
> Will your successors know what that data is? Will they know how to get
to
> it? ("Gee, we need to get at the accounts payable database from 10 years
> ago... under which node is it archived?") Will they know how to
> reconstruct it, and how to use it?
>
> I am by no means an expert in this area, but these are some things to
> consider carefully for long-term archives. Note that most of these
issues
> are not directly related to TSM, but apply regardless of which data
> storage tool you use.
>
> Regards,
>
> Andy
>
> Andy Raibeck
> IBM Software Group
> Tivoli Storage Manager Client Development
> Internal Notes e-mail: Andrew Raibeck/Tucson/IBM@IBMUS
> Internet e-mail: storman AT us.ibm DOT com
>
> The only dumb question is the one that goes unasked.
> The command line is your friend.
> "Good enough" is the enemy of excellence.
>