1. Not with 100% warranty but is somewhat possible (especially for the
case in q2). Without the DB you do not know what modification of the file
is this but contents are visible.
2. In essence yes but if encryption is not used. You still can use TSM
client encryption (56-bit DES) to prevent plain text read. If 56-bit is
not enough you will need to encrypt data (somehow) before backup.

Zlatko Krastev
IT Consultant




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Subject:        tape media

2 questions..

1.      Is it possible to recover the data from a tape without the TSM
server. I.e. I give someone the tape with some data on it but do not give
them a copy of the TSM DB. My understanding is no but I just wanted to
confirm there was no 3rd party method of doing so or some expensive ibm
service that might be able to do it in a worse case scenario.
2.      Even if #1 isn't possible, I assume it's still possible to at
least
read the tape bit by bit. While it may not be possible to reconstruct
files
from the data on there, if the data is textual (text files, emails, etc)
one
could possibly read the data there by displaying the bits in ASCii form.
Correct? Specifically I'm speculating on what level of security there is
in
an individual tape in terms of what someone could do with it if it has
sensitive data on it.

Gerald Wichmann
Sr. Systems Development Engineer
Zantaz, Inc.
925.598.3099 w
408.836.9062 c