What is the future of Spectrum Protect?

szmarcell

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PREDATAR Control23

Hi Guys!

I talked about the future of TSM with my collegous.
As I see, there is a lot of development need/request in TSM (a few from an almost endless list):

- catch up to Veeam in VE backup
- better GUI
- more robust/automatic client deployment and better client configuration (dsm.opt and dsm.sys) deployment

But IBM mainly talking about the cloud-based backup.
- Is it a real option to restore huge amount of data from the cloud in case of a DR situation?
- Is the cloud able to store 50TB data and milions of objects in a daily basis?

I mean that in an on-prem environment I am able to configure and tune my storage environment to support my backup/restore operations (eg. with lan-free option), however in a cloud environment I have only one (maybe two) ethernet connection to a 3rd party storage server.
 
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So, in a DR situation, how confident are you your site will have internet? How fast will that pipe be?
I think the cloud options for Directory Containers isn't a bad idea, and for a small site I'm sure the cost's might be worth it if you don't have a dedicated SAN infrastructure/management. I think its geared for AWS S3 storage, and really haven't looked into the cost/price for AWS S3. What is the cost diff of on premises vs cloud storage (Vendor or 3rd party support?)? Perhaps use the cloud storage for some sort of archive? That way you don't have it sitting around eating up tape/disk space. That I could see.
The above said, I can't foresee myself using cloud storage for day to day ops unless I have a multi-gig pipe to the internet at large. And if you are a company that has that, GREAT!

As it stands now, I like where IBM is taking Spectrum Protect (decommission node!!!). Coming from CommVault and getting the hang of TSM, there's some things I like in CV, and some things I like in TSM.
Not versed with Veeam VE backups so can't offer any insight to that product. But will say, the TDP for VE 8.1 is pretty nice. We are backing up 400+ VM's with TSM, and while setting up the datamovers is a bit time consuming, after tuning some options things are running really smooth. We are sending data from the vm environment to a Directory Pool. The inline deduplication and compression is pretty slick.

Client deployment could use some work, I don't like the fact that it can (if need be) restart a client computer. However, CV has the same issues in my trials. The dsm.opt isn't that bad, and if you are on windows the wizard is pretty helpful. Again, comparing to CV both require you to set up how many sessions you want to use for a node beyond the default, along with include/exclude statements.

For the OC, its a nice interface but I'm a young *NIX admin and in the beginning there was the command line :)

Where will it end up? Who knows, but the above is just my two cents.
 
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The bottom line for me is that compared to other backup/archive/DR products on the market, IBM's licensing model alongside it's very impressive deduplication & compression rates is why Spectrum Protect will retain a very long lifespan and remain a market leader in it's class. I'm under no illusion that there can still be improvements made, but what I mentioned previously is it's primary selling point and what draws it's customers in.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Hi Guys!

- better GUI
- more robust/automatic client deployment and better client configuration (dsm.opt and dsm.sys) deployment

GUI on client or server? Gotta say, it's the best GUI IBM have delivered since I started working with ADSTAR in the late 90s, but before the current, it was a disaster.

But maybe not compared to others if that's what you mean. Legato/EMC Networker was a disaster, BackupExec... not really, Asigra was quite messy.

Deployment could really be improved.
 
PREDATAR Control23

I think that IBM should make a big effort on large NAS backup, because the replication solutions are powerful and autunomes.

it would also improve TDP for VE, especially reporting and application protection that is difficult to get started. Otherwise I think TDP is well suited for large infrastructure (over 1000 VM)
 
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it would also improve TDP for VE, especially reporting and application protection that is difficult to get started. Otherwise I think TDP is well suited for large infrastructure (over 1000 VM)

I think this is where Spectrum Protect Plus will come into it's own..
 
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I am in a hurry to test but I do not know if I can with sparctrum proctect extended edition
 
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I guess this subject matter becomes a lot more relevant given the impending release of Spectrum Protect Plus..

Still trying to work out if 'Plus' is a replacement for DP for VE or actually a replacement for Spectrum Protect as a whole given the direction backups have been going lately (cloud based)?

Will IBM continue to further develop the existing client modules around Spectrum Protect 8.1.x once 'Plus' is in the mainstream?

Supposedly you don't need any kind of prior experience in backups or knowhow to install and configure SPP and it can be up and running within an hour in some cases..!

Are we as TSM/SP Admins doomed?
 
PREDATAR Control23

I'm actually seeing some opportunity with TSM and AWS. We're in the process of moving our tape courier process to s3 storage. This is going well so far - no roadblocks yet. Also, we are thinking about putting a TSM server instance in the cloud for backing up file shares. AWS offers snapshots for EC2 clients, but it lacks granularity for backing up individual files, permissions, etc.
 
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- catch up to Veeam in VE backup

I think IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is answer for this.
I started deploying this today such a simple appliance for VE backup.
 
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