Roger,
As an original joint study team member with IBM when I was working for LSI
Logic,
let me add my two cents. I don't want to rewrite the FAQ because you've done a
pretty good job but let me add some old lore and nostalgia.
There was a parallel network backup project called ESMS (Enterprise Storage
Management System, maybe?) that was an MVS-based repository for backup data.
Back then (early '80s) there were not many "workstations" other than PCs running
DOS and later Win2 and Win3, some Sun-3-class machines and some early IBM
workstations called RT (real turkey - heh). Needless to say, ESMS never saw
the
light of day as a product.
WDSF was the brainchild of this brilliant guy (I think his name was Norm Pass)
who wanted to backup all of the "workstations" down at Santa Teresa Labs in San
Jose. He was an expert in VM, data management and he liked to support
workstation users and give them that extra effort that made their life better.
As I recall, and I may be wrong on this, he started up this project with no
budget, no staffing and no official support from IBM. It was solving a problem
through creative and intelligent execution. We were starving for a backup
solution at LSI Logic at the time and we were closely engaged with IBM because
we
were a big VM user back then. Basically, WDSF was this home-grown system that
met the requirements of IBM and that's about it. I truly believe that Norm
never
dreamed his creation would become ITSM and have the impact on the computing
world
that it has.
The early days had very crude TCP/IP stacks and the VM one was dependent on some
external hardware that was extremely primitive. Of course, IBM was pushing
Token
Ring but Norm knew the value and future of TCP/IP and it was a part of what made
WDSF so good at the time. I can still remember the first pitch he gave us down
at Santa Teresa with his casual (for IBM) but enthusiastic attitude. I remember
him saying how he borrowed spare hardware and bodies in their spare time to pull
it off. It was truly a grass-roots ad-hoc project (again, by IBM standards).
As I also recall, in the later days when it was officially a product, it was
developed and supported out of North Carolina. The development platform was AIX
(that's what I could get out of them when I asked) and they ported to everything
else.
If someone can verify this information, especially about Norm Pass and the early
development days, that would be great. Please don't include any of this lore
until it's been verified by someone else who was involved in WDSF/ADSM back
then.
Mitch Sako
Roger Deschner wrote:
> I applaud the effort to create a FAQ, especially the emphasis on "how to
> get off the list" which people who don't ever read the instructions get
> wrong so often. Kicking off the What's Different paragraph with the line
> "You're not using your old backup software anymore." is especially
> inspired.
>
> Developing and refining this will be a communal effort, and so I offer
> an expanded and corrected section 04.01:
>
> Roger Deschner University of Illinois at Chicago rogerd AT uic DOT
> edu
> ================== If we do not change our direction ===================
> ============= we are likely to end up where we are headed. =============
>
> On Sat, 24 Aug 2002, Mark Stapleton wrote:
>
> >04-01. The backup and restore software package we refer to today as Tivoli
> >Storage Management was once known as Adstar Distributed Storage Management;
> >the server was only available on IBM mainframes. IBM acquired the software,
> >shortened the name of it to ADSM, and increased the number of OSs that could
> >run the server. Later, Tivoli took over maintenance and changed the name to
> >Tivoli Storage Management. The official name of the software is now IBM
> >Tivoli Storage Management (ITSM).
>
> ------- begin replacement 04-01 ---------
>
> 04-01. The product's original name was Workstation Data Save Facility
> (WDSF) and the server ran only on the VM/CMS operating system. As WDSF
> proved its usefulness and became successful within that realm, IBM
> decided to expand its scope. Responsibility was transferred from IBM's
> VM software group to its data storage hardware group, ADSTAR, it was
> renamed Adstar Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM), and the server was
> ported to a number of platforms besides VM. After acquiring the Tivoli
> Corporation, IBM decided WDSF/ADSM was a "best fit" with Tivoli's
> existing product line, and along with the transfer, WDSF/ADSM had its
> third name change - to Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). In early 2002, IBM
> decided that the product had become such a flagship, and was such a
> leader in its marketplace, that they wanted to restore the IBM brand
> name to WDSF/ADSM/TSM, and so the fourth name change came about, to IBM
> Tivoli Storage Manager (ITSM). Through all these name and responsibility
> changes, the original design principle of database-guided progressive
> backup and restore, some parts of the original server code, and even
> some of the talented people who built the original WDSF, remain with
> today's ITSM.
>
> It is interesting to note that with its latest name change to ITSM, this
> product now belongs for the second time in its history, to that rare
> group of Recursive Acronyms. That is, an acronym which consists of other
> acronyms, which it was previously as ADSM.
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