I applaud the effort to create a FAQ, especially the emphasis on "how to
get off the list" which people who don't ever read the instructions get
wrong so often. Kicking off the What's Different paragraph with the line
"You're not using your old backup software anymore." is especially
inspired.

Developing and refining this will be a communal effort, and so I offer
an expanded and corrected section 04.01:

Roger Deschner      University of Illinois at Chicago     rogerd AT uic DOT edu
================== If we do not change our direction ===================
============= we are likely to end up where we are headed. =============

On Sat, 24 Aug 2002, Mark Stapleton wrote:

>04-01.  The backup and restore software package we refer to today as Tivoli
>Storage Management was once known as Adstar Distributed Storage Management;
>the server was only available on IBM mainframes. IBM acquired the software,
>shortened the name of it to ADSM, and increased the number of OSs that could
>run the server. Later, Tivoli took over maintenance and changed the name to
>Tivoli Storage Management. The official name of the software is now IBM
>Tivoli Storage Management (ITSM).

------- begin replacement 04-01 ---------

04-01. The product's original name was Workstation Data Save Facility
(WDSF) and the server ran only on the VM/CMS operating system. As WDSF
proved its usefulness and became successful within that realm, IBM
decided to expand its scope. Responsibility was transferred from IBM's
VM software group to its data storage hardware group, ADSTAR, it was
renamed Adstar Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM), and the server was
ported to a number of platforms besides VM. After acquiring the Tivoli
Corporation, IBM decided WDSF/ADSM was a "best fit" with Tivoli's
existing product line, and along with the transfer, WDSF/ADSM had its
third name change - to Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). In early 2002, IBM
decided that the product had become such a flagship, and was such a
leader in its marketplace, that they wanted to restore the IBM brand
name to WDSF/ADSM/TSM, and so the fourth name change came about, to IBM
Tivoli Storage Manager (ITSM). Through all these name and responsibility
changes, the original design principle of database-guided progressive
backup and restore, some parts of the original server code, and even
some of the talented people who built the original WDSF, remain with
today's ITSM.

It is interesting to note that with its latest name change to ITSM, this
product now belongs for the second time in its history, to that rare
group of Recursive Acronyms. That is, an acronym which consists of other
acronyms, which it was previously as ADSM.