From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Schaub, Steve

>Well, it's also a big pain in the tush for me to explain to mgmt why
I'm

>budgeting for a BMR tool for our 600 Windows servers even though we

>already hand over a boatload of $$ to Tivoli for a backup product,

>because I have to have something I can depend on to perform dissimilar

>hardware restores.

 

I've talked about this on this list more than a few times, but I'll
repeat it for our new folks:

 

******

You can use TSM to perform bare-metal restores of Windows machines, to
similar and to dissimilar hardware.

******

 

It is a pretty straight-forward process for identical hardware, and
dissimilar hardware merely requires a little file-shuffling during the
rebuild process. I've performed BMR using nothing but a modified Windows
boot CD, nLite <http://www.nliteos.com/>  (donate to those folks--their
code's great!) and a copy of the TSM client code.

 

>I just don't think it could be that difficult for Tivoli to come up
with

>a boot cd like they use for ServerGuide that is "TSM aware" and capable

>of hardware detection.

 

It's not Tivoli's go to create CDs to facilitate alternate-boot disks
for various OSs. IBM already has that process down cold for AIX.
Similarly, Sun for Solaris and HP for HP-UX. For Windows, Microsoft
developed WinPE, and BartPE is out there for Windows as well.

 

It can be done, folks. It's not that hard.

 

--

Mark Stapleton (mark.s AT evolvingsol DOT com)

Senior TSM consultant