Stef Coene said:

>Yes, we do [backup other clients to a LAN-free storage agent]
>We have to backup data over a remote SAN and we don't have 
>enough licenses for each client.

Meaning you don't have enough storage agent licenses, right?  So you
install the storage agent on one client, then direct several other
clients to back up to that storage agent using the feature I'm
describing?

>This is backup direct to tape.  You can not use a disk based pool.
>So you need enough tape drives for all the client.  Or the data to 
>backup is small enough so don't hold the tapes too long.

Ah, that would explain it.  The last thing most TSM customers I work
with want is more tape mounts.  This might be another case where a VTL
would come in handy.

Did I also read correctly that you CAN back up to disk if you have the
SANergy product?  I'm not sure how much that costs, though.  I'm
guessing it's not cheap. ;)

I'm delighted to find someone using this feature.  Here are a few more
questions:

1. Does this change how the resulting backups are stored in the catalog
in any way (like they're listed as having been backed up from the
storage agent client, instead of the "real" client)?

2. Can you recover the same way?  IOW, can the storage agent read the
associated tapes, or must the TSM server do the restore?

3. Can you also restore from the TSM server without using the storage
agent?

4. Does this create any sort of relationship between the storage agent
server and the client?  For example, NetBackup has gotten better at
this, but you have to be careful when you decommissioned a media server,
as there is some sort of relationship that can get a bit wonky if you
decommission the media server in the wrong way.

5. I read that the storage agent will default to backing up over IP if
the SAN connection has gone away.  Is there any way to turn that off?
IOW, tell it to fail the backup if it can't go over the SAN?

Thanks so much for your help.





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