Re: Question on a new network link proposed

Thanks to all the information, it was very helpful! I have passed it on to the powers that be, to help in the decision making process.

Shannon Bach
Operations Analyst
IMS Data Center Services
Madison Gas & Electric Co.
Office 608-252-7260

"Prather, Wanda" <Wanda.Prather AT JHUAPL DOT EDU>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>

08/27/2004 02:29 PM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"

To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc:
Subject: Re: Question on a new network link proposed

Depends on your RECOVERY REQUIREMENTS.

It usually works pretty well to backup small to medium file servers over the
WAN. There are things you can do to minimize the amount of data backed up
each night:

1) turn on COMPRESSION on the client end
2) implement TSM sub-file backup for those 2 clients

Who cares if it takes 48 hours or more to get the initial backup done, if
you can do your daily incrementals in a couple of hours each night? It is
just strictly a matter of computing bytes/hour capability of your WAN
connection vs. the bytes/day to be backed up from the 2 clients.

NOW THE PROBLEM: What are your requirements for RESTORE?

THAT is where it gets tricky.
If your remote sites only expect to do restores of a few files at a time,
fine.
If you are talking BIG DATA BASES on those file servers, what are the time
constraints?!?

If you have a critical app on those servers, backup/restore over the WAN may
not be the best approach.
If it's just an ordinary file server that people could stand to have down
for a while, it may be a good solution.

If the data has a low change rate so that backups work OK, but there is so
MUCH data on the server it would take days to restore completely, here is
another possibility:

Backup over the WAN
Keep a spare server machine in the primrary data center
In case of disaster at the remote site, recover the data to the spare over
the (fast) local network
FED-EX the MACHINE to the remote site!

Lots of ways to address the problem if you plan ahead...

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Shannon Bach
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 3:06 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Question on a new network link proposed

There's some new construction going on in a remote site which will have
their own Data Center(they will not be able to use our LAN because of some
of the applications running). They want their servers to be backed-up by my
TSM Server but because of the network configuration proposed, I have
questions if this would be feasible. I'm hoping some of you Guru's can shed
some light and give me some food for thought.

There will be two Client Servers that will need to be backed-up, they will
most likely be Win2000's, but I'm still waiting for confirmation on that.
The current network link proposed is a WAN with a 1.5 meg T1.

I believe this would be way too slow to even be worth while but they want to
send the backups through this Data Center
i stead of having a stand alone backup. We currently have an MVS/OS390
5.1.7 TSM Server, with plans to go to 5.2 for Z-OS by October. The Network
person in charge thinks he could request 10 megs for the T1, but how much
would this help for band width and speed?

Any help or ideas will be much appreciated.
Thanks!

Shannon Bach
Operations Analyst
IMS Data Center Services
Madison Gas & Electric Co.
Office 608-252-7260