While I agree with Mitch's statements about what you are trying to do being
very difficult within ADSM, I do not agree with his solution.  Rather, before
you try something else, I would ask - is what you are trying to do really
necessary, based on ADSM's method of operation.   I find that ADSM eliminates
the need to go through the tedious process of doing periodic full backups, bec
ause of it's basic design.  I initially was concerned about whose data was on
which tape, but this soon gets past the point of management.  The design
really does work - relax and go with the plan.

Of course there are tings to concern yourself with - for example, if tapes are
kept in a manual method, when a restore is initiated, there is no "prefetch"
list of tapes to have handy.  Methods of doing this have been suggested on the
list here, but it would be nicer if ADSM had them built in.  I have restored
my complete machine many times, and the fact that I did not know what tapes co
ntained my data, and the fact that I had been on ADSM for 2 years, with only
the initial full backup and daily incrementals was not an issue in any way.

Jerry Lawson
jlawson AT itthartford DOT com

________________________Forward Header________________________
Author: INTERNET.OWNERAD
Subject: Re: adsm v2r1
03-28-96 02:38 PM

> I have setup an AIX4.1 machine as the adsm server for 120+ PC's running NT.
> The Plan:
> -  is to do a full backup on each machine once a week and incrementals
>    the rest of the week.
> -  and to use seperate tapes each day for full_backup and incrementals
>    ( something like Full_Monday_Week13_tape1, Full_Monday_Week13_tape2 ...
>       and Incr_Monday_Week13_tape1, Incr_Monday_Week13_tape2 ... )

I think this is going to be extremely impractical.  ADSM does not discern
one tape from another.  He looks at tapes as a pool which you have no control
over at the volume level (in terms of specific content) without creating a
very impractical number of tape pools which might cause you more grief than
it's worth.
>
> The problems I have run into so far:
>
> - Since I can only define what tapes to use in the policy domain and the
>   node definition for a particular host includes the "Policy Domain"
>   information the above scheme for tapes will not work unless

This scheme is more suited to the classical paradigm that encompasses
UNIX dump.  ADSM treats its tape volumes as a sealed unit.

>   I keep changing the policy domain for all the hosts everyday.
>   How would changing the policy domain every day effect the
>   database information if I have to do a restores.
>   Or is there a better way to handle this tape scheme?

Use another product.  I have no suggestions, however what it sounds like
is that you are trying to do something that ADSM was not created for.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mitch Sako                            Phone:     (415) 508-6761
Mitch Sako                            Phone:     (415) 508-6761
Cellnet Data Systems                  FAX:       (415) 508-6700
125 Shoreway Road                     Pager:     (408) 989-3365
San Carlos, CA 94070                  email:     mitch AT cellnet DOT com
                                      personal:  msako AT netcom DOT com