TSM server on a virtual machine

[AjM]

Is it recomended to install TSM V5x or V6.x into a VMware virtual machine for a production environment?

Someone has this kind of installation?

If it is not possible, is there an IBM web page regarding this subject?

Thanks in advance.

 

[moon-buddy]

Running TSM in a VM Ware guest partition will work but I have doubts about I/O performance. Remember that TSM is I/O intensive and requires fast access to the network cards. Bottlenecks will exist if the network environment is shared with other guest partitions.

I have tried to run TSM in a LPAR on an IBM P-Series server but I am not happy with it. I specifically don't like to mix backup environments with Production and/or Development environments.

My two cents: have your backup environment setup in a standalone system.

 

[mikeatkc]

As moon-buddy mentioned, storage I/O is your issue. I also recommend running TSM on a separate system. My setup is a separate system with 4 HBAs (dual-port) to handle SAN and LTOs.

 

[rscherrer47]

Is it recomended to install TSM V5x or V6.x into a VMware virtual machine for a production environment?

Someone has this kind of installation?

If it is not possible, is there an IBM web page regarding this subject?

Thanks in advance.

You must not really like employment...that will get you burned. Happy trails Hans

 

[DFrance]

I mostly agree with moon-buddy (Ed); I have seen TSM in a P-series LPAR, it needed to be given special/high priority for CPU & I/O resources -- which will impact performance of other apps sharing the same machine.

-Don

 

[javajockey]

Moon,
I've been thinking about partitioning my P520 server to run some smaller instances for a test environment. I was under the impression that Pseries hardware does not suffer from the same performance degradation that Intel hardware does when using a hypervisor like VMware.
You may have just changed my mind. What model "P" are you running?

 

[moon-buddy]

Moon,
I've been thinking about partitioning my P520 server to run some smaller instances for a test environment. I was under the impression that Pseries hardware does not suffer from the same performance degradation that Intel hardware does when using a hypervisor like VMware.
You may have just changed my mind. What model "P" are you running?

p6 570

You may get away with it for test environments by allocating a NIC, direct Fiber connection to SAN, and direct SCSI attachment (don't use the Hypervisor) to the HD.

I am NOT a fan, as I have said, of mixing backup environments with other environments. This is because of DR and BCP reasons. This is aside from the technical reasons.

Note Don's comment above. This type of setup will impact other LPARs.

 

[rowl]

I see this post is several years old, but now that some time as passed I am curious if anyone has done this and what their experience has been. I have an environment that is going to be 99% virtual and the plan is to back it up with VMWare Data Protection Advanced. For that 1% I still need a solution and was thinking of installing TSM 6.3 in a Linux VM. This is only going to be for 2-4 relatively small servers that are not virtual.

 

[moon-buddy]

I see this post is several years old, but now that some time as passed I am curious if anyone has done this and what their experience has been. I have an environment that is going to be 99% virtual and the plan is to back it up with VMWare Data Protection Advanced. For that 1% I still need a solution and was thinking of installing TSM 6.3 in a Linux VM. This is only going to be for 2-4 relatively small servers that are not virtual.

Still the same argument exist.

I would not run TSM in a Virual environment especially when resources are shared.

Just tried recently as POC on VM and results were horrible regardless of how light (relative to your reference or view point ) or heavy the load is.

 

[SniperKing]

The answer is simple and should be no as said to be I/O issues / HBA connection with hardware (if any). As VM technology visualize the hardware resources and share to it's client by re-allocating into smaller piece. In case of problem, you may go crazy in troubleshooting wither TSM slowing down other VM clients / other clients slowing the TSM down. You will feel like just being setup into the trap and spending days on investigation on logs but leads to the final conclusion that a standalone hardware box should be used for I/O, hardware compatibility and support VADP level backup concerns.

Even in my past job which AIX VIO prevail in market, I just banned by architect for TSM in use with VIO server, as it just making the environment complex in case of troubleshooting / maintenance of VIO server. And they can never imagine how the I/O from TSM server can be terrifying and can cause production issue when sharing the I/O in a single raidgroup even on san disk lun.