Hi All

I'm planning a slow, node-by-node migration from V5 to V6 for one of my
customers. The database is too big to do anything else.

For most types of node, this is not an issue,  Move the node to the new
server, wait for most of the data to expire and export/import the remainder
(there is some 7-year retention on just about every B/A node). Oracle is an
issue.

As soon as we switch an Oracle node to the new server, the backups on the
old server will cease expiring. Further the DBAs tell me that RMAN for
Oracle 8i will see that its catalog and TSM don't match and will remove all
the rman entries for the old backups.  Apparently Oracle 9i just marks them
as invalid.

I know that there are at least some backups that need to be kept for longer
than the standard, so I can't just go and delete everything after 40 days
or whatever. The customer is very rigid about keeping data and won't be
talked around.

This has me at a complete loss. Our biggest node backs up 2.5 TB per day
and we usually keep 40 days worth so an export/import of everything is not
going to fly and there is the issue of how to sync up on the receiving side
anyway.  I might be able to use fromdate/time and todate/time to select
just the files that I need.

I also have a similar issue with DB2, although I've discovered that I can
delete a DB2 backup using the BA command line, at least under AIX. There is
however no utility similar to tdposync for DB2, so even if I had the data
from the V5 server I don't know how to tell DB2 that it is there.

Has anyone wrestled these particular demons, and how did it work out? The
DBAs are way outside their comfort zone and I'm just as uncomfortable.


Thanks

Steve

Steven Harris
TSM Admin
Canberra Australia