We too have the same kinds of policies (store it on a central server), which
many people fail to do because it isn't convenient or they forget.  For this
reason, the only thing we do differently than you're proposing here is set up
the ADSM scheduler to run as an NT service.  It works very well and nobody
has to worry about the end user remembering to initiate a backup.

We usually have to spend some time convincing the paying customer that,
policies aside, folks just aren't necessarily going to follow the rules.
Regardless of who will be blamed and crucified in the end, how much is it
going to cost if the data is lost.  And there's never been a problem finding
real-life horror stories to help convince them.

Sorry, no white papers, though.  We have to do this convincing department by
department.  But everybody who uses it loves it, and loves not having to
worry about whether the data has been moved back to the server for backup.




ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU on 08/09/99 08:52:51 PM
Please respond to ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU @ INTERNET
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU @ INTERNET
cc:
Subject: PC Backups

We are (very) successfully backing up UNIX and NT Servers with ADSM (on
AIX, 3494 & 3590).

We are looking into the possibility of backing up a number (approx
1,000) of the NT PCs around the organisation which have all this disk
space on them which people seem to like to use, instead of the central
LAN servers.  The corporate policy has always been that if it is
important then store it centrally.  This policy is breaking down
somewhat with the amount of data people want to keep and the already
available disk space on their local PC, which is free.  The only snag
is there is no proper backup solution in place.

I imagine many other larger organisations have struggled with this.  Do
we keep data centrally, or provide a distributed backup solution for PCs.

I am sure ADSM can do the job.  We have the server capacity - I think.
We would need more client licenses of course.  But the administrative
overhead would be quite significant.

If we did this we would use user initiated backups, and only backup
specific directories eg C:\data.  All our PCs have pretty much standard
setups so we wouldn't want to backup the complete system for each &
every PC.  And I imagine we would use separate storage pools from our
existing pools, without any collocation set.

I would be keen to hear how other people have solved this particular
problem.  Has anybody got a White paper or anything examining the pros
& cons of the two scenarios.

Regards,
Simon