Thanks for the response Kelly. 
I actually thought it worked the way you explained but I did not want to
say something without confirmation since I wasn't exactly sure. I
didn't, however, know that you could write both pools at the same time. 

So this is just another nail I hope to put in the netbackup coffin. What
I have seen with netbackup here is if a tape error occurs the backup
stops, period. What I have to do now is put together a short slide show
on how we will deal with moving 125 nodes to TSM and how to deal with
the data in netbackup we need moved in to TSM. At this point
unfortunately I doubt anyone can tell me anything about the data in
netbackup. Oh sure, I can see the expiration date for tapes but people
around here want to keep 'everything forever' so finding the real data
we need to keep from those 3000 tapes I think is going to be
challenging.

The short term, 2 week and 6 month tapes, in my opinion could expire on
their own since it's going to be some time before everything is moved.
Having both clients on the same machine is not an issue in my opinion.
It's the long term data that we need to find, the "REAL" long term data,
and move it in to TSM. Finding it is the hard part, moving it is the
easy part.

Geoff Gill 
TSM Administrator 
PeopleSoft Sr. Systems Administrator 
SAIC M/S-G1b 
(858)826-4062 (office)
(858)412-9883 (blackberry)
Email: geoffrey.l.gill AT saic DOT com 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
Of
> Kelly Lipp
> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 11:28 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: backups direct to tape
> 
> Gill,
> 
> I will start by asking: What do you think happens?  The cool thing
about
> TSM is it will usually do what you think it will do.  If a tape error
> occurs, the current transaction (whatever it happens to be) will fail.
> What that means will vary.  In the case of a client/agent backup, a
write
> error on a tape will cause TSM to mount another tape and restart the
> failed transaction. Data integrity is the hallmark of the product.
> 
> Direct to tape backups are actually cool. In fact, you can write two
tapes
> simultaneously: the onlinepool and the drpool volumes.  This avoids
having
> to migrate data from disk to tape and having to back that data up.  In
the
> case of a 500GB database that will reduce the amount of data flowing
> through your server from 1.5TB to 500GB.  Huge savings.  And the write
to
> two tapes happens at the same speed as to one.
> 
> Kelly Lipp
> CTO
> STORServer, Inc.
> 485-B Elkton Drive
> Colorado Springs, CO 80907
> 719-266-8777 x7105
> www.storserver.com
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
Of
> Gill, Geoffrey L.
> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 11:28 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: [ADSM-L] backups direct to tape
> 
> I have a question that I hope those using TSM to back up direct to
tape
> can answer. We don't, and never have, done this here and I'm not
looking
> to implement it either. I am really looking for information as to
"what
> happens to the backup" is a tape error occurs. (I just know I'm going
to
> get this question when the dba's who have convinced everyone netbackup
> and direct to tape is so great) I am interested too if the TSM agents
> have the ability to compensate for this compared to a standard client
> backup. Will the agent take this into consideration and continue the
> backup with a different tape or will it die? The same question applies
> to the standard backup.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Geoff Gill
> TSM Administrator
> PeopleSoft Sr. Systems Administrator
> SAIC M/S-G1b
> (858)826-4062 (office)
> 
> (858)412-9883 (blackberry)
> Email: geoffrey.l.gill AT saic DOT com
> 
>