ADSM-L

Re: ADSM and Exchange

1999-10-25 10:11:06
Subject: Re: ADSM and Exchange
From: Chris Zaremba <zaremba AT US.IBM DOT COM>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 10:11:06 -0400
ADSML,

>But it is a SEVERE limitation of
>the implementation of ADSM.  Especially when you got John Q. Public
>out there in the middle of the night having to restore 100+GBs
>of data to recover a single message.

The customer should not have to be restoring 100GBs to recover a single msg.
You make it sound like the customer has no other choice because we have not
provided individual message granularity.  The fact is, the item recovery feature
in exchange 5.5 offers a solution that allows for single msg recovery without
having to restore anything from backup media. This approach does not have any of
the issues of a MAPI backup/recovery implementation and is also consistent with
the exchange architecture and it is a solution that many customers are using
today.

I do not consider it prudent to provide a function with lots of limitations and
issues to address a problem that has an alternate and superior solution in the
exchange product itself.  I agree that at a high level (i.e. marketing hype),
this can be made to sound like a severe limitation, but once customers are
informed of the issues associated with a MAPI implementation and the alternative
way to address the problem, they tend to agree that it is not so important to
have that functionality in the backup product.

>And more and more customers with Exchange and the e-message
>boom is leaving a lot of customers with HUGE stores of information.
>
>If this is the case, where does that leave the customer in IBM's >thinking?


It is exactly because the information stores are growing so rapidly that it is
important to provide a backup solution that performs and scales well.  You talk
of theory vs. practicality.  Have you ever tried backing up and restoring a
100GB or larger IS with a MAPI solution that provides single message
granularity?  I suspect not as you would quickly find that it is not a practical
solution.

By choosing not to implement single item granularity via MAPI and explaining the
reasons why, I believe it leaves our customers better informed and able to
discern the marketing hype from the real technical issues.  Hopefully, they now
understand that there is a better way to address the single item recovery
problem than a backup/recovery solution via MAPI.


Chris Zaremba
TDP Client (formerly ADSM Agent) Development
internet  zaremba AT us.ibm DOT com
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