Richard,

You're right, of course, but in this case Bill was trying to balance risk
of corrupted primary tapes vs. shortage of media.  I sometimes find myself
in the  same situation.  My recommendation was relative to that balance
point.
If you have the luxury of lots of tapes and  library capacity, you can of
course set the reuse delay for as long as you'd like.
You're right about tape.  I have thanked IBM several times in this forum
for the idea of the copypool.  It has saved us on at least three different
occasions.
My wife's company uses a different backup product and local drives that
write one copy of each backup.  She longs for TSM's functionality.

Thanks.

Tab Trepagnier
TSM Administrator
Laitram, L.L.C.








Richard Sims <rbs AT BU DOT EDU>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
06/10/2004 06:49 PM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"


        To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
        cc:
        Subject:        Re: Reclamation data loss scenario


>You really only need to set the reuse delay long enough to ensure that
you
>have at least one good DB backup before reusing the volume. ...

That reminds me of the scene in The Court Jester where a knight pushes
Danny Kaye out of the spot where lightning is about to strike.  :-))
Our reality is that we don't know where lightning is about to strike.
You don't know that a tape and its contained data are actually good
until you really need it.  That's why we increase the odds by making
copy storage pool tapes, and why one really needs to keep multiple
generations of DB backup tapes and a Reusedelay long enough to cover
all of them.  Tape is tape, operators are operators, and the random
elements of this universe jump out of dark recesses to surprise and
humble us when we believe we've thought of everything.
Be cautious, and increase your odds.

   Richard Sims