Hello All,
 
    I was called to examine a TSM server in order to make some suggestions to 
improve performance. Upon arrival, I found out a not-so-standard configuration:
 
TSM 5.1.6.4 on HP-UX 11
DB: 208 GB split on 208(!) volumes of 1GB each spread on 4 LUNs on an EMC box 
(95% in use)
Log: 10 volumes of 1GB each, all on the same EMC LUN
Diskpool: 101 volumes of 1GB each, all on the same EMC LUN
 
I know that splitting this server should be the best solution, and there are 
other factors contributing to this big DB size, but I will stay away from this 
for  while.
 
The first I noticed is that there are two full DB backups being executed each 
day. They go to a LTO device class, and are taking some 3 to 4 hours to 
complete, including a stange 5 to 10 minute "sleep" between the backup command 
being issued and the actual start of the process. I tried to minimize this by 
setting the log to rollforward and trying to take a incremental backup. To my 
surprise, the triggered incremental (log became 70% full) started, with the 
same delay described above, but began to crawl, at 8000 pages per MINUTE. It 
would give me almost 4 hours to copy the 7 or so GB!! Naturally, I went back to 
the fulls until I found out what could be the problem.
 
I am trying to talk to the admin of this server to upgrade to 5.2 or 5.3 and to 
review their disk config, but would like to hear from you if someone has been 
trough something alike, and of course the line of action that was taken.
 
Thanks to all,
 
Paul