Hi Julie,

Thanks for posting this :  I was somewhat astonished too to read it and did
a test on a directory restore as follows ...
_____________________________________________________________________________

dsmc
ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager
Command Line Backup Client Interface - Version 3, Release 1, Level 0.5
(C) Copyright IBM Corporation, 1990, 1998, All Rights Reserved.

ANS1837S File space /home is ignored. Processing continues.
dsmc> restore -repl=all -ifn *
Restore function invoked.

Node Name: xxxx.xxxx
Session established with server xxxxxx : AIX-RS/6000
  Server Version 3, Release 1, Level 2.0
  Server date/time: 13-11-1998 14:21:33  Last access: 12-11-1998 18:08:25

ANS1247I Waiting for files from the server...
 ** Interrupted **
ANS1114I Waiting for mount of offline media.

*** then I got 80 lines like this ***

File ....<name>.... exists, skipping

Restore processing finished.
dsmc>
____________________________________________________________________________

It did mount the tape; it took 4 minutes - I picked a directory I knew would
be together on a tape.  It did mount the tape.  I watched QUERY RESTORE so
can see that it is using the new protocol.

I too am a bit surprised ...  I would have thought that the reconciliation
could be done without mounting the tape?  The only rational I can envisage
is that some files may be needed and some not so mount the tape and skip
through.  It just doesn't seem quite the right approach :  thinking first,
then asking for the right tapes; not asking for all the tapes and thinking
on the fly!  I guess it's not doing the reconciliation first at all ...

We have in the past taken days to recover netware servers and have had to
start over when things have gone wrong (reasons vary).  It can be tough.

Regards, Sheelagh
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheelagh Treweek                         Email: sheelagh.treweek AT oucs.ox.ac 
DOT uk
Sheelagh Treweek                         Email: sheelagh.treweek AT oucs.ox.ac 
DOT uk
Oxford University Computing Services     Tel:   +44 (0)1865 273205
13 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6NN, UK     Fax:   +44 (0)1865 273275
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From owner-adsm-l AT vm.marist DOT edu  Thu Nov 12 23:04:55 1998
> From owner-adsm-l AT vm.marist DOT edu  Thu Nov 12 23:04:55 1998
> X-Lotus-FromDomain: HUMANA
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Disposition: inline
> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 17:01:33 -0600
> From: Julie Phinney <jphinney AT HUMANA DOT COM>
> Subject: No query restore rep=all -ifn
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>
> I just got very bad news today from IBM about ADSM and I'm hoping that it's
> wrong and one of you can shed some light on this situation.
> Our "theoretical" disaster recovery plan is to use ArcServe weekly and ADSM
> nightly and when a disaster happens, restore from the weekly backup with
> Arcserve... then do an ADSM restore  -REP=ALL  -IFN     to JUST restore
> anything  that's newer than the weekly backup done by Arcserve.   We'd
> expect a reasonable few hours to scan a 10 GB drive and restore anything
> that's newer.
> Well we had a  Novell machine die a couple weeks ago.  Around 10GB,  and
> 450,000 files.  The mainframe ADSM 3.1.2.0 server is using OS/390 2.5,
> TCPIP 3.4 and a Fast Ethernet 100mbs  OSA2 adaptor.
> We restored using a weekly Arcserve backup.  There should have been few
> changes left to restore using ADSM.    The ADSM Client was 3.1.0.3.
> We started the restore with ADSM  using -REP=ALL  and -IFN   which is a No
> Query Restore - our supposed ace-in-the-hole for fast restore.   We let it
> run for about 20 hours a day, every day, when we had to stop it for some
> reason or another.  It started back in the beginning every day, because
> RESTART RESTORE  doesn't work with the -IFN parameter  (IBM created an APAR
> on that for me).    After 5 days of starting it back from the beginning
> and letting it run for 20 hours and it never finished and not letting the
> users have the machine  back   we finally  GAVE UP.   and gave the machine
> back to the users.
> I noticed the session counts on that 20hour thing  every day   showed  6 or
> more GB  being sent.  And I KNEW  very little should actually be moving,
> and it SHOULD be less and less every day.   And it was mounting many tapes
> every day.   It was as if we weren't using -IFNewer.
>
> So I did a trace for IBM.   I picked a small directory that has 30 files in
> it and no subdirectories.  It needs nothing restored.  I did a RES
> -REP=ALL  -IFN.    It mounted 9 tapes and showed session counts with more
> bytes than the total of what was in the directory.  And NOTHING was
> restored (as nothing should have been).
> And IBM told me that is how a No Query Restore works with -IFN.     EVERY
> tape is mounted, EVERY FILE MOVED to the client    OVER THE NETWORK   where
> it is then compared.   And only replaced if the file is newer.
> They will submit a design change request for me.
>
> So then, is our only choice for Disaster Recovery  to use nightly Arcserve?
> Or nightly ADSM, which has already been ruled out as un-viable for quick
> simultaneous recovery of many large drives.   Can't we make these things
> work together?   How can I get ADSM to do a reasonably quick scan of the
> drive and only move what's newer.  I am astonished that that is how it
> works.   I've been using ADSM for years and can't believe I never noticed
> before that -IFN moves every file first before it compares it.   Goodness,
> it's got to be faster to skip the -IFN and just use  -REP=ALL.
> Somebody please tell me  that my IBM rep is wrong before I have to break
> this news to management.  Or help me come up with a different combination
> of parms to offer as an alternative.
> THANKS!!!
> Julie
>