(A) IMPORTANT BULLETIN

Bob Steelhammer, Manager, ADSM Technical Support | IBMMAIL USIB1CPG
5600 Cottle Road 026/300L, San Jose, CA 95193 | Compuserve 71333,3611
T/L 276 (408) 256-7766, FAX 256-7896      | e-mail pilot AT vnet.ibm DOT com
Subject: (A) IMPORTANT BULLETIN

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=====                Technical Support Team                =====
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ABSTRACT

Problem in ADSM processing of files larger than 2GB in size.


DETAIL

                IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL ADSM CUSTOMERS

Recently, IBM discovered a problem with certain ADSM clients when
attempting to backup/restore files larger than 2 Gigabytes in size.
Although the situation only occurs on specific client operating
systems which can support files greater than 2GB, IBM feels that it is
important to notify all ADSM users of the situation, and inform
them of the corrective maintenance which must be applied.

All ADSM Backup/Archive clients are currently unable to backup
files with sizes of 2 Gigabytes (2,147,483,648 Bytes) or more.

The ADSM API is not affected by this restriction.

Note that this problem is only an issue for client platforms
which support files of these sizes.

Development is currently working on providing true 64-Bit
file size support for all the clients.

This work is ongoing and will be available in a future PTF.

Recently it has come our attention that some ADSM clients
were erroneously reporting that files of this size were
successfully being backed up.

This is a very serious problem not so much in that the files
can't be backed up but in that the client gives the false
impression that they were successfully backed up and therefore
would be recoverable at a later date.


PROBLEM RESOLUTION:

      The immediate resolution to this problem is to have all of
      the clients fail any file during backup which exceeds the
      supported size with an "Access Denied" error and to log a
      descriptive message to the client error log.

      APAR IC12291 was taken to address this problem and the fix
      which implements to above resolution is included in client PTF 3.

AFFECTED PLATFORMS:

      The platforms known to be potentially affected by this problem
      are Windows NT, NetWare, OS/2, and SGI Unix.

      Again, the determining factor is whether or not the client platform
      supports filesizes of 2 Gigabytes or more.

RECOMMENDATION:

      Apply client PTF 3 and be aware that any files with sizes
      exceeding the supported maximum will not be backed up, and
      that any such files which were reported to have been backed
      up in the past were not and therefore are non-recoverable.


The IBM ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager Team

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