Many comments:
1. Multi-gigabyte backup needs time to be created on that file. Afterwards
you need to backup the file using the backup product (be it TSM or not).
Hope you are not adding to the sum backup to diskpool and migration to
tape.
Use TDP for SQL as already suggested. It is not that expensive compared to
*restore* you will have to perform - restore the file and just after that
restore the database. And applying transaction logs might be very useful,
isn't it.

2. Using single backup file forces single-threaded backup, thus
single-threaded restore. As result even if database data files are spread
across several spindles, the speed is bottlenecked by the performance of
the filesystem the backup file is created in. Also that same filesystem
must accomodate whole database, therefore be big, and from this probably
is on RAID-5 - again backup performance decrease.
Answer is again TDP for SQL with its multi-stripe backup/restore
capabilities.

3. What is the business requirement justifying those 60 versions of a file
- it is hard to be understood for both data and OS files??? Maybe the
actual requirement is to keep last 60 days but usage of some other product
transformed the requirement to 60 versions.
Find the root cause! Ask requirements to be defined in *business* terms
and not in IT terms (from your signature it seems you ought to know the
ArcView requirements, but maybe again in IT terms).

4. Your administrator is wrong. TSM is a mature product and definitely can
distinguish between different files and their corresponding requirements.
Ask your administrator to become familiar with redbook TSM Concepts
(SG24-4877) or recommend him/her to pass TSM education.

Zlatko Krastev
IT Consultant






Randy Kreuziger <KREUZRSK AT DFW.WA DOT GOV>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
08.08.2003 17:58
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"


        To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
        cc:
        Subject:        Large file backup strategies


We resently purchased a couple of sql server boxes for use in storing ESRI
GIS layers. This includes the storing of orthophotography images covering
our entire state. The orthos are stored in SQL Server with the initial
load creating a backup file 55 GBs in size. As we load more TIFs this
backup file will only grow.

According to the administrator of our  backups the policy governing this
machine is set to maintain 60 versions of a file. I thought this was over
kill before but with SQL Server backups that will approach 100GBs our
backup server will probably drown in orthophoto backups.

My administrator states that the system can not be configured to retain x
number of versions of one file type and y number of versions for all
others . Are there any work arounds so that I don't have 60 versions of
.bak files while retaining that number for all other files?

Thank you,
Randy Kreuziger
ArcSDE Administrator