Hello Mark,

     We currently have a roll-yer-own variety, but are looking at the NSM
     for DRP reasons.  According to IBM, the NSM is 1 piece of serviceable
     gear (includes, aix, drives, 3494, adsm).  So I would perceive the
     answer to number 1 as: a. you ARE shielded, and b. don't need to know
     AIX.

     As for number 2, I would think that any effective cost study must
     include some portion of AIX admin costs *besides* the hardware.  If
     your environment is like most, you probably have different personnel
     for lan/network support vs. os support.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Network Storage Manager -vs- Roll-yer-own
Author:  MARK SIMONDS <msimond AT USWEST DOT COM> at ~internet
Date:    12/10/97 10:52 AM


Hi and thanks for the help.
We currently have 4 ADSM systems running under MVS
and are now in the process of adding one or more
UNIX implementations of ADSM for another project.

We are trying to decide if we should use IBM's Network Storage Manager,
or move forward with a Solaris implemenataion.

I realize that these are broad questions, but here are our issues:
1) We are not an AIX environment, does NSM somehow remove or shield
   us from the typical OS administration? Will we need to learn AIX?
2) Has anyone done a cost study between NSM and a roll-yer-own of
similar
   capacity.
3) Does IBM really step up to the support they claim they provide with
NSM.



  Mark Simonds
  U.S. West  ~  Life's Better Here
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Technologist, Enterprise Wide Electronic Backup and Recovery Systems
                (303)624-3482 | msimond AT uswest DOT com