Yes, and does anybody remember STAC replica!?  That disappeared, too - yep,
I agree Tivoli needs to GET A PLAN here for some strategic bare metal
recovery support.

Granted, bare metal recovery (the concept) means different things to
different people:

*       For a structured environment/production servers, BMR (the product)
from TKG is a great solution, gives you a headstart on doing your recovery
without having to reconfigure the OS first.

*       In an environment like ours here, with hundreds of machines in a
not-very-controlled environment, we need a solution that requires less $,
and requires no preparation at all other than the TSM backups, even if it
takes a little longer.

As Kelly said, it is possible to do a complete bare metal restore for either
WinNT or Win2K with just your OS install disk and TSM backups.  We've done
several on real working systems (not just test machines) in the last 3
months.  Instead of posting instructions back to ADSM-L, I've posted them to
the scripts depot at www.coderelief.com, with several updates for different
combinations of server & client levels.

=>  Click on Scripts & Links Depot, then
=>  Scripts Discussion Forum, then
=>  Tivoli Storage Manager scripts, then
=>  Disaster Recovery.

There are procedures for WinNT and Win2K.  I've gotten WinNT to work with
most every TSM client from 3.1.0.6 up through 4.2.  Win2K is MUCH MORE
SENSITIVE to the client level; I don't recommend doing it at any client
below 4.2.0.

PLEASE note the caveats in the instructions; it MATTERS what level of client
and server you are running, and the order in which you do things.  And
remember you need TWO sets of procedures - one for how you will recover from
crashes on site (recovery to the same hardware), and another for how you
will recover at an offsite location (different hardware, different
priorities).

There is JUST NO SUBSTITUTE for understanding your own environment - DON"T
wait until you have a crisis to get your disaster drill down, and don't
expect everything to work right the first time.  It is NOT automatic, like
working with BMR (the product).

And while I'm on my soap box, remember, if you CAN'T AFFORD AN OUTAGE of at
least 3-4 hours, you shouldn't be depending on ANY backup-recovery product,
including TSM, for your livelihood - you should be looking at HACMP, NT
clustering, RealTime, or some other high-availability technology.....


My opinions and nobody else's...
Wanda Prather