Folks,

  I would like some advice or opinions on alternatives to what I am about
to outline.

  We have several large NT servers that run huge RAID arrays that simulate
single logical drives.  Some are currently 40 Gig and we are intending to
implement 80 Gig arrays.

I need to administrate ADSM in such a manner that I can run multiple
restore processes to write to these logical drives in case of a full loss
of that drive.  Typically running multiple processes would not be first
step to increasing restore throughput.  However, these drives house the NT
home directories for users and can have around 500,000 files.  As we know,
this is ADSM's Achilles heel, large numbers of small files.  I also know
that V3 will take steps to resolve this problem.  However, I would like to
do everything I can do to get the drives available ASAP and would like to
bounce an idea off of you and get your opinions.

The ability for us to be able to run parallel restore processes seems to
hinge on three things.  (assuming we don't just keep all backup data on
DASD, which we don't).  The first thing is to keep the directories on DASD
so that multiple processes can access them.  From my observations and
reading the first thing ADSM does is attempt to rebuild the directory
structure during a restore.  The second thing is the capability to write
the backups to multiple sets of tapes.  The third thing is the capability
to direct ADSM to call for these tapes as separate sets to run the restores
concurrently.  I have a solution that may support these needs.

I can direct my backups to different mgmt. classes via the options file.
For example:
DIRMC   DASD4EVER
INCLUDE *:[A-H]*  SPLIT1
INCLUDE *:[I-P]*   SPLIT2
INCLUDE *:[Q-Z]*  SPLIT3
Exclude ...

Can I then run multiple restore concurrently?  Since the set notation (ex
[A-H]) is not supported on restores is it possible to run restores that
call for each of the separate sets of tape?

If anyone sees an alternative completely different from this, please feel
welcome to share it.

Thanks,
Daniel Thompson
Storage/Automation Management - USAA
thompsod AT usaa DOT com