Howard Coles said:
 
> Sounds like NDMP does things along the lines of the Oracle TDP.  TSM
> doesn't know, and can't manage what's in the data sent to it.  Is that
> about right?  We're considering dumping the oracle TDP because of
that.
> I don't want my TSM system just being a dumping grounds for data, I
can
> use setups that are a lot cheaper for that.

I agree that NDMP =~ TDP, in two ways.  First, they think like
traditional GFS backup products with an occasional full and regular
incremental backups.  Second, they both pass a "blob" of data to TSM and
give TSM what it needs to catalogue the contents of that data.  The
negative to this is that you don't get to take advantage of TSM's
traditional features, such as file-level versioning.

But don't forget that these agents are written for a reason, and they
provide value that you should consider before discontinuing their use.
If you consider those reasons and decide that the negatives outweigh the
positives, by all means, discontinue their use.  Here's my quick summary
of their benefits:

NDMP
* The ONLY way to automatically back up a filer to a
robotically-controlled
  set of tape drives, and have those backups cataloged by something.
  (Alternatives are IP-based backups and manual dump scripts.)
* NDMP backups are prioritized below NFS requests, allowing the filer to
  continue serving NFS and not be impacted by the backup (assuming 
  the filer is sized appropriately.  Edge conditions do happen.)

Oracle TDP/RMAN
* The ONLY way to do incremental backups of an Oracle database.
Otherwise
  it's a full every night, as one update changes all datafiles in an
  Oracle instance.  This is a huge savings in IP, CPU, and tape
resources.
* Data ingegrity checking.  RMAN performs referential integrity checks
  during a backup.  (Used to have to do exports for this)
* Block media recovery of a corrupted datafile.
* Automated restores.  You tell rman to restore the database.  It
  Automatically figures out what needs to be restored and restores it.
* Bunch of other new features in recent years, including Flashback, 
  Flash Recovery, block media recovery, quicker incremental backups.
  None of these will be available to user-managed backups
* Also don't minimize the value of using the supported method.  Oracle
  support will always look at your funny when you call and say you're 
  doing user-managed backups.


---
W. Curtis Preston
Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com
VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies