Neil,

In my opinion that TSM server is having disk contention problems.

At one customer, running TSM on Windows 2003 server, they perform
regular DR test  restores of their TSM DB (approximately 45GB, 52% of
80GB total DB volumes), and it finishes in less than 1.5 hours. However,
this is in their test environment with their DB and Logs on separate SAN
LUNs, if they test the DR on a less capable Windows server (with limited
internal disk drives) it takes a lot longer.

BTW, I did implement your suggestion. Basically, the production TSM
server used SAN for the first copy of the DB and Log volumes, and we
used TSM mirror copies on a separate SAN (approximately 2 miles away).
We did develop a DR strategy to "recover" the TSM DB from that mirrored
copy, and successfully tested that strategy multiple times.

We eventually stepped away from that strategy because of potential
support issues. Possible support issues were a black cloud when
discussing DR procedures with the backup clients.

 
Regards,
 

Brian Matthias
Storage Engineer
Datalink Corporation

bmatthias AT datalink DOT com
www.datalink.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Neil Sharp
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 10:28
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM DR restore query

Hello I was wondering if anybody could help or advise with the following
question.

I need to devise a solution to speed up DR for one of my customers.
Currently their DR solution is the classic restore from TSM DB tape and
then
load all of the off site tapes into the DR library and then perform the
client restores. The problem is that the TSM DB restore can take in the
region of 5 hours. The TSM DB is 45GB.

I was thinking of using the following method. Can any one see any issues
with this?

*On the primary TSM server:*

They have a Windows 2003 Standard Edition TSM server. I am proposing
that we
set up TSM DB and log mirroring, one copy on local disk and the second
copy
on SAN attached disk.

*On the DR site:*

They also have a TSM 2003 Standard Edition TSM server. When DR is to be
tested / invoked, I would propose that they re-zone the DR TSM server to
access the LUN that contains the DB and logs. Ensure that the DR TSM
server's dsmserv.dsk points to the mapped drives.

Note the the TSM tape library is also SAN attached.

Any comments / experiences would be appreciated.