> >I gather you are suggesting using the same node name for
> >different machines, but using different volume labels for their
> >disks so as to generate different filespace names.
>
> Yep. If it's a real problem, you could create user1, user2, user3 for
> the person who needs/wants separate userids.

Is anyone actually doing this (using the same nodename for different
machines)?  If yes, you may have just solved an annoyance of ADSM for
me.

I have a Unix cluster of about a dozen machines running AIX, SunOS and
NeXTOS.  Four of the machines serve user disk space of about 3GB per machine.
The filespaces are shared via NFS and automounted as needed.  The passwd
file is shared via NIS to all of these machines so I have the same accounts
on every machine.

The problem that I have is that if I run normal backups of ALL-LOCAL
filesystems for the user disk space servers, my novice users have a
hard time finding their filespace under ADSM because they have to
first determine which machine their disk space actually resides on,
then log onto that machine, and then run ADSM.  What would be much simpler
for my novice users is to just run ADSM client from whatever machine they
happen to be logged into and see the filespaces that they have data stored
on for any of the machines in the cluster.

If I can really use the same ADSM nodename for all of these machines without
severe complications then this problem is solved.

Potential problems with this setup: Can each physical machine with the
same ADSM nodename run client polling scheduled backups at the same time?
Will all of the filesystem spaces on the different machines be seen as
active no matter which machine actually finishes their backup last or
will the second machine mark all of the files on the first machines
filesystem as deleted because the second machine does not see the first
machines filesystems mounted at the time that the second machine is running
its backup?  Will the backup of each machine using the same ADSM nodename
within a 24 hour period count as one backup total or multiple backups
depending upon how many machines are using the same nodename?

-Mel Callender
Systems programmer
Systems programmer
New Mexico State University
Computing and Networking
E-mail: mcallend AT nmsu DOT edu
Phone: (505) 646-6079