Its wonderful to see the loyalty several people on this list have shown
towards ADSM, often commenting that no matter how bad they think the
documentation is, they consider it much better than any of its competing
products.
I've worked with ADSM and many of the other products, and thus their
manuals. They are all on a par in my humble opinion. ADSM tends to have
more documentation, and much of it seems a bit more technical than its
competitors manuals. But there is a very good reason for this. ADSM
assumes a lot more responsibility than Harbor, Upstream or CAM does.
ADSM not only takes responsibility for doing and maintaining the backups; it
also manages the tapes, performs HSM for the data when it gets to the
server, and it is responsible for security. The other products just
accomplish the backups and keep track of what was backed up. These products
rely on (in an MVS environment for example) products like CA-1 to assume
responsibility for tape (and vault) management, DFHSM to migrate data
between to and from tape, etc... This explains some of the complexity of
the documentation of ADSM.
It is a matter of opinion which should be preferred - having one product
which does everything (maybe this is very valuble for someone who wants to
move to different server platforms to support client backups, enjoying
similar look and feel as you move platforms), or having a backup product
which specializes in doing the backups and relying on other tools native to
the platform (again, TMS and HSM products under MVS are very mature, have
experienced support people, etc...)
>*** Original Author: ADSM-L @ MARIST - ** Remote User **; 04/24/96 02:22pm
>
>>Sender: "Dist. Stor. Manager(ADSM) List" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
>>From: Bob Klein <KL2 AT CU.NIH DOT GOV>
>>Subject: Re: ADSM manuals--another view
>>To: Multiple recipients of list ADSM-L <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
>>
>There have been many comments about the IBM ADSM manuals. While
>they no doubt can be improved, they are head and shoulders above
>the documentation I have seen for other similar products.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>Robert P. Klein KL2 AT CU.NIH DOT GOV
>Phone: 301-496-7400 Fax: 301-496-6905
>Mail: DCRT/CFB/ETS, 12A/1033, 12 SOUTH DR MSC 5607,
> BETHESDA, MD 20892-5607
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** Comments From: STEWAJM - Stewart, Mike; 04/25/96 07:12am
>
>I'm not sure I understand the vehement complaints about
>the manuals either. I installed the ADSM MVS server
>about three years ago, and it seemed to drop in without
>much trouble.
>
>While there is certainly room for improvement,
>my strongest complaint would be that over the years the
>manuals were not updated to describe the enhancements
>that maintenance added to the product, but instead users
>had to reference PTF hold data.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>Mike Stewart
>Mgr. Systems Programming
>Division of University Computing
>Room 144 Parker Hall
>Auburn University, Al. 36841
>Mike.Stewart AT mail.auburn DOT edu
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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Jeffery V. Koeberl HTTP://www.execpc.com/~koeberl
Jeffery V. Koeberl HTTP://www.execpc.com/~koeberl
Systems Coordinator (414)299-4637
Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co Live to improve. 8^)
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