I believe that the TSM (ADSM) Mac interface has improved significantly
since Version 2 - Version 3 was a huge step. There are of course many
additional things that we need/would like to do. It is a constant
balancing act between new function, enhancements, fixes, and limited
resource/time. I would welcome constructive, prioritized feedback as to
what items you would like to see enhanced/improved.
I can not stress enough the importance of organizations relying on an
up-to-date Mac client (MacOS 9, X, new functions, etc) to convey this
strongly to your marketing reps. If its important, the marketing group
needs to understand that.
In regards to the mentioned scheduler APAR, I will work to ensure that it
is addressed. Until it is fixed, you can either use the ADSM Scheduler
app, which will run all the time, or use the cron app that Paul mentioned.
I also believe in MacOS 9 you can use AppleScript to schedule things - I
couldn't find the info on it, but I just saw that recently.
The installation problem mentioned has been fixed, and will be available in
PTF 8.
I am disappointed to hear that in some cases the V3 client is still not
being used, and I would really like to understand the issues keeping you
from rolling it out. Please feel free to send me a note with the primary
issues involved.
Cheers,
Brett
Brett Walker ADSM Development, IBM
walkerbl AT us.ibm DOT com tie 276-0265
----------------------------------------
"Of course that's just my opinion; I could be wrong."
"Of course that's just my opinion; I could be wrong."
--- Dennis Miller
Paul Zarnowski <vkm AT CORNELLC.CIT.CORNELL DOT EDU> on 10/20/99 04:00:38 PM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc:
Subject: Re: Macintosh experiences
I concur with Jim on all of his points. With v2, we used a public domain
utility called 'cron' which has a very small memory footprint. We used it
to start up the ADSM Scheduler at night, and used the schedcompleteaction
quit option to cause the scheduler to quit after it ran. We would prefer
to drop this in favor of the new ADSM Scheduler Daemon in v3, but as Jim
indicated it does not work. We also opened a PMR on this and were told
that it would not be fixed until next year - a fact that has delayed our
deployment of the v3 client to our campus, except in circumstances where it
is needed.
We have a rather large Mac population on our campus, so the Mac client
support is very important to us. We wish it were better in ADSM.
However, having said this, we are still using ADSM to backup many Macs
here. It is preferred by many over Retrospect, but it could be much better
if this type of little problem were solved. Another recent problem we
encountered was that the installer for a recent PTF level of the Mac client
code would not install a Preferences file on a new install (e.g., not an
upgrade). This was also a problem for us, as we do not have trained staff
who go out and install ADSM everywhere. We need a robust, easy to use
installation package. I'm sure you know the kind I'm talking about, Brett
Apple seems to implement them very well.
..Paul
=--
At 01:15 PM 10/19/1999 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi Brett,
>
>I use ADSM in very mixed vendor environment. Almost all my general user
>systems are Macs, with many of my servers running AIX, Sun OS, HPUX and
>few NT boxes.
>
>I don't have the best news for you. The version three clients are much
>more Mac like, yet they still have to be continually running to work
>properly. The most recent version of the Mac client initially looked
>very promising. It comes with a separate scheduler that claims to runs
>completely in the background. The problem is that scheduler continually
>pops up every five minutes to check with the ADSM server. It is
>annoying to say the least.
>
>IBM is well aware of the problem. We have a APAR logged with them, and
>they claim it will be fixed Q1 2000. They call it PTF level nine. So
>for now, we still back up user machines with Retrospect. Our server
>don't have a problem with another application continually running, so
>all our servers (including my Mac Servers) use ADSM client version 3
>level 6 or 7.
>
>We have been very happy with the restore performance. On the occasions
>we've had a restore, the system has really shined. The admins used to
>working with Retrospect are surprised how quickly we get things
>restored. I've restored data to one of our servers in under 60 seconds.
> It just happened to be sitting in the initial disk storage pool.
>
>- Jim
>
>Brett Dikeman wrote:
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> We're just about fed up with Retrospect; it's too "dumbed down" for
>> our purposes and it lacks many basic features(like backing up
>> mulitple clients and so on.)
>>
>> However, we are a company which is at least 50% Macintosh, and 90% of
>> our servers are Macintosh systems.
>>
>> I have no problems running backups off an NT machine, however, the
>> quality of support for Macintosh clients is very important.
>>
>> When I worked for MIT, we used ADSM, but I was totally unimpressed
>> with ADSM's interface which was completely un-mac-like. There also
>> seemed to be no built-in automatic scheduling unless the ADSM
>> application was actually running, which is not acceptable for a
>> business environment, especially in an environment with heavy focus
>> on video.
>>
>> However, this was about a year and a half ago, and the version we
>> were using was probably not the latest, so perhaps things have
>> changed, I really don't know....
>>
>> Any comments from people using ADSM in a 50/50 Mac/PC environment
>> would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Brett
>> ----
>> Brett Dikeman
>> Network/System Administrator
>> BorisFX 617-451-9900x119
>> 381 Congress Street, Boston MA 02210 617-451-9916(fax)
>> http://www.borisfx.com
>> Java, n.
>> The Philosopher's Stone of the alchemists, the Second Coming of
>> Christ, the Maltese Falcon, and the fourth Star Wars movie, all rolled
into
>> one. A technology for developing programs that will run on any platform,
>> and crash in a different way on all of them. A mighty acorn that grew
from
>> a tiny Oak. An idea whose time has come, leaving General Magic to sleep
on
>> the wet spot.
>> -Godling's Glossary
>
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