Hi,

So with server-free and lanfree the bottleneck that gets dealt with is
the SAN or LAN respectively, but is there any performance improvement
with the client to TSM server database communication?

I have a client with close to 100 million small files that rarely
change.  Incremental backups can take days and the client manager has
suggested LAN free as a solution.  We're running gigabit ethernet
between the TSM server and the client and transfer rates are usually
quite low during the backups, so I don't see that LAN free would help
significantly.  I'm suggesting processor upgrades to the TSM server and
client to handle the database queries of the 100 million files faster.

Is there anything in LAN/serverfree that might help in this scenario?

Server: 4.2.2.12: AIX
Client: 5.1.7: Solaris 8

Thanks,

--
Graham Stewart
Network Services Manager, Information Technology Services
University of Toronto Library
130 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario        graham.stewart AT utoronto DOT ca
Canada   M5S 1A5        Phone: 416-978-6337 | Fax: 416-978-1668
Stapleton, Mark wrote:

Also, since TSM does not know the end platform,
how can TSM backup files? Does it only back up blocks and
the client must ask for enough blocks to make up the files
it wants to restore?

The way that server-free backups happen is that TSM makes use of an
application like Tivoli's SANergy. SANergy creates an internal NFS
mountpoint with a chunk of SAN-attached disk that TSM's disk-based
storage pool uses and mounts the client's chunk of SAN-attached disk
onto that mountpoint. TSM backs up files across the mount.

It makes for *fast* backups, since the bottleneck in this case is the
bus speed of the storage unit's disk controller. Metadata about the
backed-up files is sent from SAN disk to the TSM client (via fiber) to
the TSM server (via the LAN), but no data moves across the LAN or the
SAN.

--
Mark Stapleton