We had the same sorts of problems moving clients from server to server.  We
found that length of time had more to do with the number of files moved
than the amount of data moved.  We did the exports by filespaces.  That way
if we had an error we didn't have to start over at the beginning.
Jim

At 10:17 AM 1/20/2005 -0500, you wrote:

I am looking for suggestions on how to handle moving large TSM clients
between TSM servers and maybe some corrections to my understanding of how
EXPORT/IMPORT handles error situations.

I need to move TSM clients from my zOS server (being phased out) to my AIX
TSM server.  The problem is, some of these systems have > 1TB of data to
move.

When I tried to move a 500GB client (250GB actual since the copypool data
is not moved), the export/import ran for >40 hours before failing on a
tape drive failure (190GB moved).

My understandings are that:

1.  During the E/I the client is locked/can not be performing backups on
*EITHER* system. This means the client has to go without *ANY* backups for
the duration. This is generally not acceptable !

2.  If the E/I fails like it did, I have no recourse but to delete what
was successfully sent, and then start all over again. Doing a MERGE
FILESPACES is only going to save me the issue of it creating multiple
duplicate directories with the same name +1. It still will work through
all 40+ 3590 tapes.

So, how do you handle situations like this ?

If 190GB took 2-days, 1TB will take > week with me praying for no tape
drive failures (or TSM server crashes like it did earlier in the week with
a U301 abend/known problem).

The zOS server only has access to a 100MB connection.

Both TSM servers are 5.2.3.4. I will be upgrading to 5.3 as soon as I can.