Direct to Tape Backup Question

[dennis_in_texas]

Hello TSM'ers!

We have our backups going to the DISKPOOL, as the default, but some of our backups are mistakenly going direct to tape. Do any of you know if there is an "easy" way to query the Activity Log, to determine WHICH clients might be doing this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated (so I don't have to look at every DSM.OPT or .SYS file, to try and figure out who the offenders are.)

Thank you,

dennis_in_texas

 

[heada]

I would look to see which management class writes to tape or just query the contents of the tape that was written to.

-Aaron

 

[dennis_in_texas]

heada,

Thanks for the suggestions. I am not sure how looking at the Management Class would help here. Maybe you can elaborate...?

And, this system is very busy, with lots of tape mounts through the night, for reclaims, MOVE DATA processes, etc. Is there a TSM "error" code that specifically identifies a tape mount as one used for a backup?

Thanks,

d_i_t

 

[heada]

If you look at the copy groups under the management classes, that will show you what copy groups write to tape and what writes to disk. You would then have to know what hosts are in what domain and what management classes they use (based on include/exclude lists). Another way for a client to write to tape is if the diskpool fills up and tape is defined as the next pool...or if you have a size limiter on the disk pool and anything bigger than that size get written to the next pool, which would have to be defined as tape.

There isn't any unique error or message code that shows a client mounting a tape versus another process and if a tape is already mounted, it could use that tape anyway.

-Aaron

 

[dennis_in_texas]

Thanks again Aaron. Now I see what you meant by looking at the Management Class. Unfortunately, these servers are being bound to a "tape" MC, in the OPT/SYS file. So unless someone else has a suggestion, I may be stuck with querying every one of these files. At least for the UNIX/Linux clients, which is where I believe this is coming from.

Muchas gracias!!

 

[dennis_in_texas]

BTW...I think your signature should say:

Three things are certain:
Death, TEXAS, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

 

[heada]

If the clients are using a tape management class, then it makes sense that they're writing to tape. If the default management class for the domain were a disk based management class, then the include options in the opt/sys file would tell you which files would be writing to tape as they would be a different management class than the default.

-Aaron