----- "Tuncel Mutlu" <Tuncel.Mutlu AT AKBANK DOT COM> wrote:

> Hi gurus,
>
> I have a disk pool migrated once a day to a tape pool, but some data
> stays (capacity problems). Until I have solved that, every day I have
> to empty the disk pool deleting the data. Here are the questions:
>
>
>  1.  Is there any way to empty the disk pool without deleting the
> volumes ? The only way I have found is to delete the volumes
> disgarding the data (after that re-creating them).
>  2.  My TSM server is Windows 2003 based (TSM 5.5.3.0). When I delete
> a disk volume, the file in Windows stays there, I cannot create it
> again after that, so I have to manually delete the files from Windows
> and that create the volumes again. Is this the way it should be ? That
> prevents me from automating the operation with a script.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Tuncel Mutlu
>
>

As mentioned elsewhere, you might as well not be running the backup in the 
first place if you're deleting the primary storage pool volumes.  After all, 
the backup doesn't matter, the integrity of the restore is what's important.  
Don't waste time making a backup and then deleting it - just don't bother with 
the backup, the result is the same.

You don't mention what the capacity problem is, but from your post I suspect 
it's the speed of migration that doesn't allow you to finish in time before you 
need the tape drives for something else.  In which case there's obviously some 
tweaking to do around start/finish times and other operations.

For the disk pool, have you considered looking at the clients and what data you 
are backing up?
- Large image type backups - e.g. Exhange databases or SAP or similar - could 
potentially go straight to tape bypassing the disk altogether.
- Some servers might be backing up more than is needed, maybe consider 
splitting them up into a few jobs and run data only backups at some times and 
data/os backups other times
- Consider a less frequent schedule for lower priority servers
- tell the people with the cheque book that the server has run out of capacity 
and you have no means to provide a full backup, therefore the entire business 
is at risk of data loss.  Give an example of what would happen, with the backup 
data missing due to capacity issues, should a server need a restore.  The cost 
of downtime is usually much higher than the cost of a decent backup.

If you're out of tapes, then you really need to sort that out, tape's not 
expensive.

If your library has run out of slots, look into the 'OVFLOcation--=--location' 
settings of the tape storage pool and the 'move media' command 
(http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v1r1/topic/com.ibm.itsmcw.doc/b_adminref_windows230.htm#dqx2r_cmd_media_move).
  Contrary to popular opinion, if you have the time to monitor tape requests 
and feed tapes in, your library does not need to hold all the tapes in the 
primary pool.