Hello all,
I know this subject comes again from time to time, but I was faced
not with the dilemma, but with "how to say it":
I've got a customer (long time customer, since 4.1) who is planning
their upgrade. They are still at 5.2 level, and are going to 5.4.1. They
are a Windows shop, and Windows is their choice of TSM Server platform.
However, they faced some problems with it:
First of all, their servers are getting old (each server is a 2 x PIII
800MHz, connected to a bunch of EXP arrays with various combinations of
SCSI disks from 9GB to 36GB). This was good when they started using it,
with something like 200GB/day transfers from their client machines. But
now, with 900GB/day in a six-hour window, this setup is proving rather
slow. Not only to transfer the client data to disk, but migration is
also a pain at a 6MB/s average. Needless to say that their library (IBM
3584 with 5 LTO2 drives) is grossly underutilized performance-wise.
Second, despite being a Windows shop, they had once trouble when they
lost one of the servers, at a remote site, due to a hard disk
controller failure. Counting everything from reinstalling the OS to
restoring TSM DB, they lost some 72 hours.
In conversations with the technical team, we talked about TSM Server on
AIX. While their original plan was to get a new Windows machine that
could handle their projected 1,4TB/day (in the next 3 years) average,
the idea of a AIX machine was well received. Especially when we had
about mksysb vs. Windows reinstall, raw devices, overall robustness of
the platform and (most important) I/O performance. AND the customer
technical team was willing to get through the painful process of
exporting/importing historical data into the new server.
Not being a pSeries specialist, I know that if you compare the two
worlds, a pSeries machine have a LOT more I/O capability than a xSeries
counterpart (considering comparable processor power. I don't want to
upset anyone here, including the ones who would say that such comparison
is absurd).
Management had another opinion, however, mainly due to the price
difference between the two machines, and I was told to prepare a report
stating which would be the key advantages of a AIX machine as a TSM
server.
I wrote a report including the points mentioned above and some more (I/O
performance, raw devices, quick etherchannel, easy expansion as they are
targeting a p520, mksysb, LPAR, dynamic reconfiguration) but would like
to hear from you if I forgot something really big that could be "the
point" in such a decision.
Thank you all
____________________________
Paul van Dongen
IBM Certified Deployment Professional
ITSM 5.2 & 5.3
ITWS 8.2
IBM Certified Storage Administrator - ITSM V5
SNIA Certified Professional
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