Will also depend on the complexity of your client environment.
One TSM adminstrator scales up very well; you don't get a lot of extra work
on the server end when you go from 100 clients to 200.
But, who is managing the extra 100 clients?
Dan's note doesn't mention the work required on that end. Who will be
responsible for rolling out new client versions to 200+ machines? And what
if you have 14 supported client platforms instead of 1?
Most days here, the client problems take more time than the server problems.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Foster [mailto:dsf AT GBLX DOT NET]
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 8:01 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: TSM Staffing level question for Enterprise Shop
Hot Diggety! Gordillo, Silvio was rumored to have written:
> TSM Staffing Level Question:
>
> I'm searching for documentation, industry best practised, bench marks,
> etc... on recommended staffing levels for our TSM Environment. Need to
> get pointed in the right direction to provide management with levels of
> support for enterprise sized TSM shops. Maybe some TCO (total cost of
> ownership) validation docs out there to support staffing levels. Below
> is what we manage.
>
> 4 TSM Servers ver 4.2.2.12 (they will be replaced & upgraded soon) AIX
> 4.3.3 780 TSM Client Nodes various flavors databases mostly oracle, SQL,
> Exchange 6 LAN-Free Clients. (Gresham EDT Knowledge) 4 STK 9310 Silos
> running ACS Server 6.0.1 Direct off-site copy pool stg process between
> data centers via Optical Carrier
Well, my take on it is that for an enterprise sized backup system...
needs to have a bare minimum of at least two skilled administrators -
mostly for coverage reasons (vacation, illness, unavailability in crisis,
etc).
We're a small shop here - about 150 TSM clients, and we've found that
one administrator is just fine (although we really do want more... but
interesting other co-workers in learning can be a bit of a daunting task
sometimes...).
Reason? Once you've configured TSM to your satisfaction, it pretty much
runs itself if you've set it up properly -- including scripts to manage
routine events, to check for abnormal events, etc.
The high cost of TSM setup for us was purely in the time it took to
read/re-read the manual and experiment with various setups, do testing,
iron out stupid SCSI issues with the tape library, and then to write
about 40 TSM management scripts for the first pass of the updated TSM
platform.
After that, it pretty much ran itself trouble-free after we'd worked out
the initial kinks during the first week of production for the updated
TSM setup (5.1, new library, new server, etc). Only change we had to do
after introducing the tested setup into production was to increase the
tsm db log size. That's it.
So for us, the expense is mostly in the time spent planning and configuring
the setup... post-setup, costs us just about nothing for manpower - two
seconds to scan the daily reports and that's it.
However, with more complex setups, definitely do need more people -
especially useful if you had a serious crisis such as a large scale site
breakage or even just for coverage reasons.
How to calculate how many people required... that's honestly a good
question. I'm of the school of thinking that says with a properly designed
setup, it should be able to pretty much scale up to any size.
I know I could go to 500-1000+ clients with the existing tools without
modification because I designed it to scale up easily and without any
additional work. So in theory, I could continue to run this setup ok just
by myself... although not most recommended idea for a large setup.
So... 'appropriate number'? May vary with actual production workload -
for instance, are TSM administrators expected to do tape swaps? If a *lot*
of tape swaps each week (or day) is required, this can take hours at really
large sites. Also, if you have older tape technologies or a really complex
setup that breaks down often, then that's also very labor intensive in
dealing with it, too... and would require more administrators.
Also, if you have significant tape infrastructure at multiple sites that
are far apart, you would most likely want to have at least one local TSM
administrator per site - for tape swaps, for debugging tape library issues,
for disaster recovery, etc. If it was a couple of sites in the same town or
nearby, could get by with fewer people... but harder to do that if you had
sites 500+ miles apart. I don't mean "a couple drives and 50+ tapes at a
site", I mean the more significant ones with multiple robots and hundreds
or thousands of tapes.
A single admin that is very good with churning out decent scripts to manage
the platform in 'automatic' mode (self-running) is worth his/her weight in
gold and is significantly cheaper than 5 or 10 less experienced people whom
insists on doing everything manually (very labor and time intensive). So
admin experience and skill level also has to be factored into the TCO, too.
Because experienced admins making good tools will have setups that pretty
much run themselves well and effectively which saves you heaps of money in
the long term and hence, reduces the overall TCO if averaged and amortized
on a yearly basis.
So, the answer you seek... will depend on a variety of factors... age of
infrastructure, complexity of infrastructure, size of installation, number
of sites with sizable tape infrastructure, skill of personnel, coverage
needs, job expectations/responsibilities, growth rate for tape
infrastructure over 6-36 months, and so forth. Training is also a more
significant cost with more complex and larger enterprise setups -- training
classes, test server and associated hardware to familiarize the staff with
enterprise level new configurations over time, etc.
But if you're looking for a simple answer, my guess is a site of your size
and complexity probably ideally should have at least 2 or 3 TSM admins. If
one didn't have money for staffing... then could *probably* get away with
only one, but it would have to be a very, very good TSM admin.
-Dan
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