In reply to the following suggestion:

> >Is there any possibility in the future for eliminating the limtation on
> >only being
> >able to restore/retrieve files to the same node type?
> >
> >This is rather a big problem for shared network drives on servers.

On Thu, 8 Aug 1996, Brett Walker wrote:

> We have considered removing this restriction.  However, users must
> understand the inherit problems of allowing this.  For example, Macintosh
> files backed up from a Mac are stored in a format that the mac will
> understand (resource and data fork).  However, a Mac file stored on an OS/2
> Lan Server is stored on the Lan Server in a non-Mac format, and that is how
> it is backed up.  So restoring Mac text files (as long as they had no
> resource fork) would probably work ok, but anything else would be garbage.

Well, the suggested new feature would allow restoring a Mac file to any
system in a way that it can be transferred to a Mac by other means (e.g.
ftp) and regain its usability.

There are also files that *are* mutually intelligible between systems but
still ADSM disallows cross-restoration. Or a file might be readable on
the target system after employing conversion software. Or the two systems
are actually the same but one of the ADSM clients was API and the other
one wasn't (enough reason for ADSM to consider the two clients different).

My suggesting is:

1. Allow cross-restoration and protect it by a command flag. If the user
   enables cross-restoration, the responsibility of usability of the data on
   the target system is no longer with ADSM (if it ever was).

2. Unconditionally treat API access to a system as equivalent to non-API
   access to the same system (i.e. have the so-called API become a real API).

Best regards,

Helmut Richter

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Dr. Helmut Richter                       Leibniz-Rechenzentrum
Tel:   +49-89-289-28785                  Barer Str. 21
Fax:   +49-89-2809460                    D-80333 Muenchen
Email: Helmut.Richter AT lrz-muenchen DOT de    Germany
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