ADSM-L

Re: Tivoli TMS (ADSM) vs Veritas Netbackup

2000-11-03 11:19:58
Subject: Re: Tivoli TMS (ADSM) vs Veritas Netbackup
From: Doffie Benjamin <Doffie_Benjamin AT TIVOLI DOT COM>
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 10:05:05 -0600
ADSM
Best meets these requirements with an extensive range of features which
provide:

Data protection
? ADSM provides protection for files, file systems, and entire disks, with
ranularity at the file level. This includes the ability for
certain files to have longer retention and/or more backups kept than
others.

     Legato Net worker backs up at the "save set" (group of files) level.
     It is not possible to provide different retention durations for
     different files belonging to the same save set. There is no capability
     to specify number of versions that you want to keep.

? ADSM electronically labels tapes. In the event of a mismount, ADSM will
reject the invalid tape.

     Legato provides no such facility. Although it does "label " tapes,
     it can overwrite data if a mismount occurs during a multitape write.

? ADSM provides a mirroring capability for both its database and logs to
protect against data loss.

     Legato Networker can keep a duplicate of its index file but it
     does not offer the dynamic addition, resynchronization, and recovery
     that the ADSM database mirrors do.

? ADSM provides a Disaster Recovery Managerwhich automatically tracks the
status of onsite and offsite tapes and serves as a repository for recovery
and client configuration.

     Legato Networker only provides a manual tracking of onsite and offsite
     volumes without a disaster recovery manager.

? ADSM uses a relational database with two-phase commit to keep track of
file movement. If a backup process is interrupted, ADSM will roll back the
incomplete transaction. This prevents invalid, imcomplete backups as well
as "orphan" files on tape.

     Net worker's simple flat index file implementation does not provide
     these safeguards.







Automation
? ADSM provides automatic scheduling of backups, archives, restores and
retrieves or any other client command according to administrator-defined
criteria: daily, week ends,week days, specific days of the week, etc.

          Legato Net worker can only schedule backups, not command
          strings or macros.

? ADSM automatically moves files through its server storage hierarchy, e.g.
from disk to optical to tape (as defined by you).

     Legato Net worker has only a rudimentary storage hierarchy of disk to
     tape or optical. It migrates based on threshholds. This is new. They
     do not support multi-level disk or tape storage pools as does ADSM

? ADSM automatically reclaims partially used space on tapes
to minimize the size and cost of the tape pool.

     Legato's "tape recycle" function is manual, and can only be in-
voked for tapes which are fully empty of valid data.


Simplicity
? Customers who desire "drop-in" convenience can select the IBM 3466
Network Storage Manager, a complete, integrated solution of
hardware/software.

     Legato is a software-only company; it provides no such offering.

Flexibility
? ADSM provides support for a very large number of popular clients and
servers

     Legato Networker provides support for several environments,but cannot
support AS/400, MVS, VM, or VSE. It has recently added suppor t for DEC
Alpha machines.

Cost Effectiveness
? ADSM uses a unique "all incremental + reclamation and collocation"
algorithm to ensure that unnecessary duplicate files are not backed up.

     Legato Networker uses a "full + differential/ incremental" algorithm
which constantly backs up files which have already been backed up. This
wastes money and resources.



? ADSM's reclamation process automatically reclaims used space on tape to
minimize size and cost of the tape pool.

     Legato Networker provides no such facility; a tape with a single valid
     file on it is retained, wasting space and money.

? ADSM provides duplicate file reduction at the client. A user can exclude
files by adding an exclude statement to a text file (the client options
file).

     Networker 's capability to exclude files from backup requires an
     administrator to create a program module for that client.. .which
     req1uires proper authorization and training.

Performance
? ADSM's backup paradigm backs up only changed files.

     Legato requires frequent "full backups" in addition to "incremental"
     and/or "differential" backups. These redundant copies waste client
     time and system resources. .

? ADSM can use collocation to backup client data to tape. With this method
a restore of this data is much faster because only one tape has to be
mounted.

     Legato Networker provides no such function to help performance of a
restore operation.

Security
? ADSM provides an integrated kerberos-like "mutual suspicion" security
paradigm which protects against break-ins, TCP/IP "spoofing", etc.

     Legato Networker provides only password-level security.

Future
? ADSM is written by IBM's Storage Software organization, and has a strong
history of addition of valuable function and addition of vendor platform
support. With the transfer of ADSM to Tivoli, focus will be to invest
aggressively in product development and marketing to leverage Tivoli's
momentum in the enterprise management segment.

     NetWorker is writ ten by Legato. Legato has been adding additional
storage management products to its offerings (such as its GEMS products),
but has not added important function to NetBackup to enable it to more
closely provide capabilities tailored to customers' business requirements
for handling data (e.g.no advanced policy management, no file-level
granularity)
Legato's direction seems to be to broaden their storage management product
suite, not add more business function to the NetWorker product.


Questions to ask Legato
1.   ? Why does your product back up files it already has current copies
of? What is the performance impact of this?
2.   ? Why doesn't NetWorker use an advanced database system to keep track
of the backups?
3.   ? What if I'd prefer to use an existing MVS or AS/400 system as my
backup server?
4.   ? What can I do when I want to restore a single file that has been
"interleaved" over 7 tapes and I have got only 2 drives?
5.   ? If a user has two files, one of which requires 3 backups and 6-month
retention, and the other of which requires 5 backups and 7-year retention
(e.g. for tax purposes), how can your product provide this function?
6.   ? When will you provide an automatic Disaster Recovery function in
Legato Networker?
7.   ? How do you protect your user passwords sent over the network? How
can you prevent IP "spoofing" without using "mutual suspicion" security?
8.   ? What if a tape contains only one valid file? Will that whole tape be
retained, wasting all of that space?
9.   ? If I need to call for defect support, what are your hours of
service? how quickly will you call me back?

ADSM Summary
ADSM is an enterprise-strength storage management product, providing the
protection, automation, simplicity, and flexibility you require...in a
cost-effective manner.

















New Items that Legato will talk about :
1.   ? GEMS (Global Enterprise Management System) shipped in October 1997.
2.   ? RLM (Remote Library Manager) for HP, SUN, AIX plat forms, and NT by
year-end; RLM allows a central administrator to manage remote tape
libraries.
3.   ? NetWorker for Tivoli, a Tivoli/Plus module. Offers message
consolidation, automated responses, performance management. This is the
Legato offering which is similar to ADSM's Tivoli Plus module.

NetWorker 5.1:
The latest version of NetWorker is 5.1 for Unix, NetWorker 5.1 offers some
of the following new capabilities which Legato is stressing as part of its
GEMS initiative:
1.   ? Storage Node Support: The NetWorker server maintains the metadata in
indexes, but the actual data is on another specialized node, called a
storage node.
2.   ? Client workstations send information about themselves to the server,
which retains this information (such as operating system level). This is a
foray into the new realm of storage resource management. ADSM already keeps
this information in the ADSM database.
3.   ? Relief from the limitation of 2 GB maximum per index. Starting
4.   with 5.0, NetWorker can use multiple files in a NetWorker index,
5.   so one client can have more than 2 GB of metadata in its index. ADSM
already offers this capability in its ADSM database implementation. This is
really important to NetWorker users, because it addresses a real weakness
in NetWorker 4.4 and below.
6.   ? Support for disks as backup media. Now, local disks can be the
target for backup data, so the data can be restored lots faster.
7.   ? New , better GUI for users to restore their own backups. Users can
now select restores from a list of backups that specifies file currency
(last modification time and date), in addition to backup time. ADSM has
offered the ability to choose files based on file currency for years.
8.   ? NetBackup now offers a capability to restore multiple files or a
whole system to the way it looked at some point in time in the past. This
is their approach to providing what ADSM offers in "point-in-time restore"
, or what Veritas calls "True-Image-Restore" (tm).
9.   ? The NetBackup interface for NT users is improved, and is more
intuitive for users accustomed to NT-style interfaces.
10.  ? They talk about supporting block-level backup, but we haven't seen
this yet.
11.  ? They typically stress their enterprise administration capability.
ADSM's  enterprise administration capabilites offer more powerful
capabilities, such as its hierarchical inheritance of options file
specifications and some policy information.



Doug Thorneycroft <dthorneycroft AT LACSD DOT ORG> on 11/03/2000 09:44:30 AM

Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>

To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc:    (bcc: Doffie Benjamin/Tivoli Systems)
Subject:  Re: Tivoli TMS (ADSM) vs Veritas Netbackup



There was a discussion in September that may help you,
visit the archives at  http://search.adsm.org/  and search for "would you
buy
tsm again"

On Friday, November 03, 2000 4:58 AM, Klatt, Michael
[SMTP:KlattM AT EUROPE.STORTEK DOT COM] wrote:
> http://www.keylabs.com/results/veritas/veritas.html
>
> Gru?
> Michael
>
> -----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Sixbury, Dan [mailto:dsixbury AT SAINT-LUKES DOT ORG]
> Gesendet am: Donnerstag, 2. November 2000 19:55
> An: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Betreff: Tivoli TMS (ADSM) vs Veritas Netbackup
> Vertraulichkeit: Vertraulich
>
> We are currently trying to decide between using Veritas Netbackup and
Tvioli
> Management System (ADSM).
>
> Does anyone know of pros or cons of using one over the other?  If you
don't
> know about the other product, is there anything that you have experienced
> that made you wish you had chosen a different backup software solution?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Dan
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