On Aug 10, 2010, at 1:08 PM, ego3456 wrote:

> wow, so it really is as clear as mud..  :D
> 
> my assumption of the retention taking that many tapes was understood by me to 
> be a function of not only the shelf life (retention) but the reclamation (no 
> we don't use collocation, which I'm well aware we should) shotgunning those 
> data bits across a large number of tapes; if all this is true, without a 
> large increase in tape library capacity (we have 252 slots) or a large 
> increase in disk resources, is there an easy way to fix it?  If not, I'm 
> inclined to scrap it all and put in NBU for backups going forward.  saving 
> the argument on which is better, I'm an NBU guy and a staff of one, and my 
> inclination is if I'm spending buckets of cash, I'm doing it in a way I'm 
> familiar.  My first whack though is to try and save this thing so I'm hoping 
> someone out there can provide a panacea or at least an incremental 
> improvement that is free and time efficient.  am i spitting in to the wind?

You can't use any product effectively until you understand it.  Enterprise 
level products entail more learning, but the concepts are straightforward.

This is a technical forum.  If you have specific questions, lay out the 
particulars, including details, and we can communally advise you.  It sounds 
like you have ONE management class and copy group definition, unbounded so as 
to cover everything.  Instead, you should have as many copy group retention 
definitions as you have service level agreements in your organization that 
involve data assurance (backup/restore), which will make for sanity and more 
reasonable tape usage - and best performance.

Don't panic - approach the challenge in the standard professional manner and 
conquer the subject matter.  There's abundant documentation out there to help 
you, where TSM materials at www.redbooks.ibm.com are the best starting point, 
outside of the TSM Admin Guide manual.  The support portal, 
http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/Overview/Software/Tivoli/Tivoli_Storage_Manager,
 provides numerous technotes and Support Technical Exchange subject 
explorations to help you out.

    Richard Sims