TSM Load Balancing

dannyblair

ADSM.ORG Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
58
Reaction score
0
Points
0
PREDATAR Control23

Hello,
I currently have 2 TSM servers on two IPs (before I started managing the TSM they previous admin was putting nodes on them to be backed up evenly to balance load). What I am wondering is if this is the best practice here. I dont really see any "cluster" type settings in the admin or in any of the IBM documentation. I am sure I am missing something. Can someone point me into the right direction?

Thanks.

-Danny
 
PREDATAR Control23

I know it sounds silly, but when I create a node, I select the server with the smallest utilized database size. It's not perfect, but it works.
 
PREDATAR Control23

There is really no "best" practice here. It all depends on a myriad of things, but a lot will depend on you DR requirements and capabilities. Should a TSM server handle a tier, or should the tiers be spread out across the servers? In some cases, it may be better to have a TSM server handle specific types of applications. If you do a lot of archiving, you may want one for backups and one for archives.

If you do a search, you'll find a number of posts concerning this topic; probably with far more questions than answers! ;)
 
PREDATAR Control23

Thanks for the responses. I am kind of currenly doing it your way javajockey, I just think this is kind of hap hazard way of operating. Seems there should be a better way of doing this. I dunno, im still new to TSM.

Right now I am trying to have one manage HSM and one do just backups. Does this make sense at all? Not quite sure how system resources are handled differently in HSM vs a plain backup server (FAR fewer HSM machines than backup nodes). Maybe that in and of itself is balancing load. Not really doing any archiving as far as Tivoli is concerned. I will say though that the second Tivoli server doesnt own the tapes, only the first does (the server doing the HSM).

Right now I just have the two servers running local, the future plan is for a DR site with another Tivoli server but this is a bit far off and I havent learned enought about Tivoli or even DR to really speculate on how that is going to work.

Thanks for the help guys, this site has been a wealth of knowledge to someone taking on a TSM enviroment.
 
PREDATAR Control23

Well, I don't particularly think there is anything wrong with doing it your way. so long as your are comfortable with it. The main concern lies in making sure your server can complete it's maintenance jobs. Naturally if one of your servers is struggling to complete Expiration while the other one is IDLE, you need to offload some of the resources on the struggling server. DB size seems to be a good indicator of how large your TSM server is. This has worked well for me in the past.
 
Top