On May 22, 2011, at 3:55 AM, Mehdi Salehi wrote:

> Hi,
> When we backup files to TSM, number of versions makes sense in paramteres
> like VEREXISTS, VERDELETE and so forth. How does the versioning concept
> apply for filesystem backups and backups coming from TDP?
> Databases have their own full and incremental backups, so how to combine
> these concepts with TSM versioning?

I'm familiar with four TDPs (well, three TDPs and one app that behaves like a 
TDP). Two of them use a constant name for their full backups, but unique names 
for their log files (and probably for incremental backups, but I won't swear to 
it). The other two, including Oracle rman, use unique names for everything. For 
rman and for DB2, versioning in TSM is irrelevant; you let the client delete 
the backup objects, and a policy that doesn't retain extras or the last copy 
makes good sense. For Informix and I think for SQL Server, versioning makes 
more sense; the TDPs know how to see -- and use -- inactive backups. 

Keep in mind in all cases, there may be set-up on each client to get it all to 
work correctly. If rman isn't set up with a distinct catalog of its backups, 
you'll get orphaned backups your DBAs will have to delete manually. DB2, at 
least in some releases, is also prone to orphaned full backups. 

I haven't worked with file system image backups; sorry. That's on my to-do 
list, especially now that we're using deduplicating storage appliances.

> Thank you,
> Mehdi


Nick