>>> Capo <tsm-forum AT BACKUPCENTRAL DOT COM> 10/15/2010 4:35 AM >>>
Hi all,
I'm involved in a TSM + VTL project but, unfortunately, I'm quite new
in TSM world: please apology me if I make trivial questions:
My customer has currently got 4 TSM instances copying to a small disk
pool and then to an IBM Tape library.
They would like to introduce a VTL in the existing environment to
improve overall performances and give TSM servers a little break.

My questions:

1. TSM catalog is growing too much. Would VTL help them to reduce its
size ?

No.  The TSM DB keeps tracks of where things are.  A VTL would not
reduce its size.

When data are copied offline (I suppose via a copy pool), does the
catalog still keeps track of them?

Yes


2. Physical tape generation from Virtual media is really important in
this project: customer would like to keep fresh backups on VTL and old
ones on tape. With other BU applications this would be quite easy but,
since TSM has got a peculiar way to manage files (versions), I am a
confused: do you think that defining the tape library as a copy pool is
a good idea?
I would recommend defining the VTL as a PRIMARY storage pool replacing
the disk storage pool and the physical tape as a COPY storage pool.
Then backup directly to VTL and make a copy each day to the physical
tape.


What level of granularity can I reach with the storage policies and
copy pools? Can I simulate the lifecycle policy of other backup
applications ? Can I tell migrate XX backup to tape after 1 month and
remove it from the VTL and stuff like that ?

3. Any real life experience to share ? The candidates for this project
are Centricstor and DXi 7500 (or the new DXi 8500).


Thanks for your help
Max

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