On Fri, 20 Jan 1995 14:18:57 +0100 Roy Jaques said:
>>...several things, then:
>
>>    5) ADSM facilitates off-site backup for disaster situations; the backup
>>       media is NOT going to be stored 5 feet from the Sun server it came
>>       from.
>>
>Is your system completely isolated from the systems it backs up ? Different
>building, different town.... different country.
In my case, and I expect many others, the ADSM system is separated from
the client systems (and would be whether ADSM ran on mainframe, UNIX or OS/2.
It's been our painful experience that too many "self-propelled" backups
never stored the backup copy away from the server, leaving them exposed
to damage by fire, water, theft, and so on.  Mainframes live in fairly isolated
rooms, UNIX systems often don't, exacerbating this problem.
>
>>    6) ADSM reduces labor costs, without requiring acquisition of jukebox
>>       or optical devices.
>>
>We have a server with tape library and optical jukebox, you mean your server
>has everything on hard disk !
In your case, you've already expended funds for those facilities (which, could
certainly be used by ADSM running on AIX or Solaris); sites that have
a mature mainframe environment and are beginning to provide backup
for distributed systems already have an investment in offline
media attached to mainframes.  This is a very common scenario!
>
>>    7) ADSM permits enterprise-wide audit and management oversight to ensure
>>       implementation of backup policies.
>
>Departmental purchasing policies put paid to that a long time ago. so the
>thought is  "we buy the systems with our budget, what's it got to do with you
>anyway".
That's very much a feature of individual institutions.  Commercial
institutions have firm-wide policies regarding global issues like security
and backup which affect a company's key assets.  It is absolutely the business
of the such an institution to ensure that it's critical data is protected,
regardless of which department's budget bought a computer.  This may be
unimportant in an academic environment, but not in a commercial firm.  Even
if a department implements its own backup system, it will likely have to
demonstrate to an audit or compliance department that data is adequately
protected.  "None of your business - I paid for this machine" is not
an acceptable response in this world.
>
>Just another hint try understanding what their problems (and prejudices) are
>don't just assume you have a solution.
Certainly - especially the problems part.  People's prejudices are their
problems, and not a basis for decision making we should advocate.

Jeff Savit