Are the files system files only (.exe) or user files? (.txt, .doc, .xls etc.)

A possible cause is someone in security changing the access control for 
directories and "pushing down" that change through the file tree.  
It actually updates all the ACL's on the files, and the files get backed up 
again, even though the files show no change to the update or access timestamp. 

W

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Thomas Denier
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 11:51 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Odd client behavior

We recently noticed an unexpectedly rapid increase in database space usage on 
one of our TSM servers. This seems to be the result of two Windows clients that 
are consistently backing up hundreds of thousands of files every night. We 
checked our other two TSM servers and found two more Windows clients behaving 
this way.

In all four cases the behavior started during the same backup window:
late October 9 and early October 10.

All four systems are in the same Windows domain. The domain administrator does 
not recall any noteworthy updates on October 9.

One of the Windows administrators involved looked at dsmsched.log and reported 
that the backups include large numbers of files that have not been updated or 
even accessed recently.

The four Windows clients have, among them, three Windows levels (XP, 2003, and 
2008), two TSM client levels (5.3 and 6.2), and three groups of people 
responsible for system administration.

The three TSM servers involved include one 5.5 server and two 6.2 servers. All 
run under zSeries Linux.

I would appreciate any suggestions regarding possible causes for this behavior.

Thomas Denier
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital