Retrieve of 1000x files to destination different to original pathname

[vojto]

Hello all.



We run TSM 5.2 (client/server) on AIX 5.2 and have this problem.



We repeatedly need to retrieve a few 1000 files to destination folders different to source ones. Archive backup is made onto tapes.

For example part of source listing is

<UL>

<LI>/aaa/bbb/file1

<LI>/aaa/bbb/file2

<LI>/aaa/ccc/file3

<LI>/aaa/ccc/file4

[/list]



And those listed files should be restored as

<UL>

<LI>/ddd/bbb/file1

<LI>/aaa/bbb/file2

<LI>/aaa/ccc/file3

<LI>/ddd/ccc/file4

[/list]



If I do it like opening separate dsmc session for every single file, it would take a few hours only for managing this dsmc sessions. Suppouse opening 1 dsmc session takes 5 seconds. Only management part of retrieve of 5000 files this way would take 5x5000/3600=7 hours

And commands would look like this:

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font class="pn-sub">Code:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT class="pn-sub"><PRE><UL>

<LI>dsmc retrieve -des"blabla" /aaa/bbb/file1 /ddd/bbb/

<LI>dsmc retrieve -des"blabla" /aaa/bbb/file2 [/aaa/bbb/]

<LI>dsmc retrieve -des"blabla" /aaa/ccc/file3 [/aaa/ccc/]

<LI>dsmc retrieve -des"blabla" /aaa/ccc/file4 /ddd/ccc/

<LI>...

[/list]</PRE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>



Is there a way to do the retrieve job without opening seperate session for every file?



I know of a nice way defining ORIGINAL and NEWDESTination directory for one dsmc session, but it is possible to use it only in case I want all of the files from ORIGINAL directory to be restored to NEWDESTINATION. example:

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font class="pn-sub">Code:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT class="pn-sub"><PRE>dsmc retrieve -des"blabla" /original/directory/ /newdest/directory/</PRE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>



Olso wildcards would be very helpfull to me if it would reduce number of dsmc sessions. I am aware of the fact that restoring files in order different to the order they are layed on tape takes time for searching.

 

[robbenleaf]

If the same groups of files are always being restored to the same locations, you may be able to drastically reduce the number of restore commands you have to run by using the -filelist parameter.



So you would make a file list of all the files to restore to their original directories (say, original.txt) and run



restore -filelist=/usr/original.txt -replace=all



This will restore all of those files to their original location.



I'm not sure how the restores to a different directory would handle the original path - you may have to make another list for each subdirectory that contains files (say, aaabbb.txt, for example) and run



restore -filelist=aaabbb.txt /ddd/bbb/ -replace=all



Creating and maintaining the file lists will still be pretty time intensive, but I think that's the nature of the type of restores you're trying to do.

 

[vojto]

The destination directories are always different between retrievals. If it wasn't that way, I would make backups ordered according to retrievals.



Using -filelist is only half of the sollution. Better than nothing, thank you for the tip. But another problem arises: jumping from file to file on tapes, because of gaps including files which are not present in current filelist.



The best sollution I can think of now is going in order through the original filelist, comparing files' new destinations a creating filelist when there are more than one file in succession that will end up in the same directory. Then running dsmc sessions so that original files are read from tape in the same order which was used while backuping.

Some of the sessions will use -filelist, some will retrieve only single file.

:cry:



Any other tip?