ADSM-L

[ADSM-L] Q about TSM notification in a widely-distributed environment

2012-11-06 14:29:53
Subject: [ADSM-L] Q about TSM notification in a widely-distributed environment
From: "Prather, Wanda" <Wanda.Prather AT ICFI DOT COM>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 19:21:50 +0000
One of my customers is becoming effectively a "backup service bureau" for many 
remote departments (and the number of depts. they service is growing).

The central TSM admins have access to the TSM clients in the glass house, but 
no access to the TSM clients for the remote departments.
Currently they use TOR to send email to the remote machine owners when TSM 
clients fail or miss.

Remote admins often ignore the emails; general result is TSM clients miss for 
long periods, and the central admins don't know whether there is a legitimate 
problem, the machine has been decommissioned, or the machine owner has been 
decommissioned.

They are looking for a reporting tool that will provide a better way to handle 
this than sending email out into the vacuum of internet space and hoping for 
results.  (And yes, my customer already has service agreements where the remote 
owners have agreed that dealing with the failures and misses is their 
responsibility.  But that's not working now, and when the rubber meets the 
road, it's the TSM admins that get blamed when there are no backups!)

One possibility I can think of (short of writing our own apps) is to have TSM 
send the info (via mail or snmp) to a ticketing system that generates a ticket 
that has to be addressed or it gets escalated to a manager.   But I have no 
familiarity with such ticketing systems, so can't recommend one.

So, what do other people in widely distributed environments do for this?  
Product recommendations welcomed, we'll look at them.

Thanks!
W







Wanda Prather  |  Senior Technical Specialist  | Wanda.Prather AT icfi DOT com  
|  www.icfi.com
ICF International  | 401 E. Pratt St, Suite 2214, Baltimore, MD 21202 | 
410.539.1135 (o)