Hi -

I don't know if this information will help you, but it's something you
could look into:

When you use the TDP agent for Oracle 8, it works with RMAN, the Oracle
Recovery manager.  You don't run the TDP agent by itself; you run RMAN,
and it invokes the TDP agent via an API call.

What the TDP agent does is sort of make ADSM look like a funky
alternative tape driver from RMAN's point of view.  But instead of going
to a local tape drive, the data goes over the network to ADSM.

As far as I know, your user can STILL specify that RMAN send data to the
local tape drives, or to ADSM, according to which output destination he
selects when he runs RMAN.  (And since he will be running the same RMAN
interface he is used to, he should feel pretty comfortable using it.)

(I'm speaking from Oracle on AIX here, don't have any experience with
Oracle on NT.)

Might be worth getting he a trial copy to play with.  Has the added
benefit of letting you do backups while the DB is open, which eliminates
all your scripting hassles with shutting the DB's down.....

Wanda Prather
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab
443-778-8769