On Feb 24, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Dksh Cssc wrote:

HI all,

My comp has policy to do ONLY INCR backup on filesystem for unix
machines.
We need to re-schedule a filesystems backup for TSM server and I'm
wondering the impact of restore if we only do incremental backup as
oppose
to full backup. The TSM filesystems being backup doesnt really
change much
and I'm worried it would be difficult to restore if the retention
period
expires.

The reason the mgt do not fancy full backup is because they do not
want to
jam the other backup sessions and waste resources.

Your management is astute, both in appreciating data traffic issues
and in having acquired a product such as TSM, whose whole orientation
is to ameliorate such issues.

You might review the IBM redbook "Tivoli Storage Management Concepts"
to better appreciate the opportunities provided by the product,
particularly in its filespace data collocation techniques, which are
provided to minimize the number of tapes involved in a restoral in
the presence of incremental-only backups. And if the data doesn't
change much, then the task is all the easier.

Retention periods, versions, and policies are your choice, to
preserve as many back copies of the data for as long as you want.
(Data which expires is beyond "difficult" to restore - it is
impossible.)

Consider ordering the free TSM Concepts Poster, via the TSM Support
Page (http://www.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/
IBMTivoliStorageManager.html).

   Richard Sims     http://people.bu.edu/rbs/ADSM.QuickFacts