Ben,

I've had to do "permanent" retention only twice so far.

The first time we did the "keep forever" change to the management class
associated with our Lotus Notes files.  As predicted, data and tape usage
grew unbounded.  That helped us decide to migrate from 3570 technology to
LTO.

After that suit was settled we exported the data to "shelf" DLTs then
upgraded the Notes server to Domino R5.  That changed the nature of the
backups via TDP, so we essentially started over with our Domino backups
and did a DELETE FILESPACE on the old Notes data.  All gone except for the
exports to DLT and imports into R5 (current data).

We learned.

The second time this came up, I met with Legal and explained how TSM
worked with lots of pictures on the whiteboard.

With that info in hand, we exported all data of relevance (and yes that
took almost a week), along with a full database backup to DLT, and a
floppy with the config files like device config and dsmserv.dsk.  All of
that went into a sealed container along with version info:  these tapes
were created with TSM 4.1.4.0 on AIX 4.3.3.

I also got Legal to sign off on the understanding that because of TSM's
dynamic nature, if they decide to access that data after it was more than
six months old, they would have to LEASE an RS/6000 and a tape library and
we would work on a parallel system.  Three years from now I was not going
to roll our system back from TSM "7" to TSM 4.1 just to access the data on
those tapes.  And, of course, the import would take the same week that the
exports took.

Those tapes have been sitting in their sealed container in the vault for
five months now and no one has asked for their contents.

Tab Trepagnier
TSM Administrator
Laitram Corporation