My rating for ADSM is 6.

Reasons,  good for central backups, with wide variety of support for
devices and networks.

Main down points are:

1.  Not possible to restart a backup;  especially for long-time consuming
selctive backups,
     restarts from start again.  Really trouble some.
2.  In short all long processes should be restartable, like  export,
imports,  db-backup.
     We lose hours when these processes fail, and system becomes
vulnerable, especially with DR.
3.  Can not have backup copy without a database.  Even archive may not be
readable, if there is no
     entry of it for the node.  A raw backup format like tar should be
provided, so that user
     can backup at will, and store it locally or centrally for long time,
without any retention periods.
     I think this should be necessary at minimal level, for backup and
restores to be flexible, and
     easier to handle, without database problems.
4.  Performance tuning should be more clear.  It should be clear with each
parameter and what effects
     are expected.  So when some body tunes, it is easy to keep track of
the results.
5.  DB restore should be made faster (especially with large db consuming 6
hours), will make users
     wait long, before they can restore.
6.  Network statistics and trace to be more clear and informative for
tuning purposes.
7.  Unix files are not listable without a readwrite access, even to admin.
An option can be built
     in system to set it whether they can be at least listable, to monitor
the user backups.
8.  It is hard to keep track of tape consumption by node; and hard to
figure out the unnecessary backups.
9.  Slows tape speeds, and should be easy to implement multiple threads
into normal backup/restore/db-
     backup/restore.

There are several other small problems, but it is good for short time
backups, but trouble-some with
large size backups (even it can handle with some efforts).  However
currently, it is hard to find any other alternative exists and reliable in
the market.



> How good do you rate TSM on a scale of 1 to 10.  (10 being best).
>
> Would you definately buy it again, or would you shop around.
>
> My gut feeling is that everybody has some complaints with their backup
> solution.
>
>
> Lynn Sattler
> Dana Corp
> Toledo Oh
> lynn.sattler AT dana DOT com