I could not have expressed my own opinions better- thank you Roger.
I still remember being skeptical going from the IBM Red Books (real paper) to
PDF's.
But it's not the same leap going to online "information centers". With each
new release, I try again, but I am always disappointed. Maybe it's an "age
thing."
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Roger Deschner
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2016 9:28 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Bring back TSM Administrator's Guide
I'm glad that the last PDFs of this valuable book at Version 7.1.1 are being
made more widely available. I have already downloaded that PDF to the USB thumb
drive I carry around everywhere, for access regardless of the network
condition. This could be in a disaster recovery scenario, or at a client node
site where I might need to create a new account and password just to access the
net and read the doc. The fact that it was deemed necessary to make this PDF
more widely available, points out the problem.
If you are hinting that you are considering publishing an updated 7.1.5
Administrator's Guide, that would be great! An important thing to update would
be container storage pools. When to use them, how they compare to other types
of storage pools (disk, file, tape, VTL...), and how to set them up and manage
them. Perhaps include them in a new column in Table 5 on Page 77 of the 7.1.1
Admin Guide. Another would be deduplication, which has a lot of new powerful
features in 7.1.4, which will make it attractive to users who have not
deduplicated before.
I rarely use the online Information Center. I find its hierarchical
micro-partitioning of information to be way too narrowly focused, leading me to
overlook obvious solutions to the problem at hand.
Especially new solutions such as container storage pools and the new features
of deduplication. The Information Center is also especially poor in the client
area. I always go to the PDFs first, even when online with fast network access.
Therefore I can't give feedback in the way you suggest.
I tried the Custom PDF file creation facility, and I found it disappointing.
The resulting PDF has only topics I could think of, and omits the ones I really
need to solve a problem. It requires clairvoyance to make a useful PDF
containing the answer to a problem that I haven't had yet, and it has no index.
So I am going to reiterate what I said before: Update the Administrator's Guide
for 7.1.5, and keep it up-to-date going forward as a single book. This book is
a key asset for the entire Spectrum Protect product, especially as existing
customers seek to utilize features they haven't used before, and as new
customers explore the incredible depth of features in the product.
Roger Deschner University of Illinois at Chicago rogerd AT uic DOT edu
======I have not lost my mind -- it is backed up on tape somewhere.=====
On Wed, 27 Jan 2016, Clare Byrne wrote:
>Following up on this thread, the 7.1.1 Administrator's Guide PDFs are
>now available in IBM Knowledge Center at
>http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGSG7_7.1.1/com.ibm.itsm.ts
>m.doc/r_pdfs_tsm.html This is in addition to where they were available
>before, in the .zip file and on the Tivoli Storage Manager wiki. We
>hope this makes it easier to find and access the 7.1.1 guides.
>
>A reminder: We are still very much interested in hearing about what the
>most important subjects from the 7.1.1 Administrator's Guide are for us
>to consider for updates. Knowing more specifics about your priorities
>is very important to us to set priorities.
>
>One way to give such feedback privately: Go to any topic (in any
>version) for Tivoli Storage Manager in IBM Knowledge Center and click
>the Feedback link in the menu bar at the very bottom. If your comments
>exceed the 1000-character limit in the feedback form, you can include
>your email address in the feedback and ask us to contact you.
>
>Clare Byrne
>Information Development for IBM Spectrum Protect Tucson, AZ US
>
>
>__________________
>
>Please be assured that we in IBM development are listening and are
>discussing future actions regarding the Administrator's Guide content
>since the feedback about the 7.1.3 release that did not include that book.
>I gave some information in a response to that earlier feedback:
>http://www.mail-archive.com/adsm-l AT vm.marist DOT edu/msg99286.html
>
>We are working on a plan to publish a solution guide for the
>disk-to-tape architecture next. This should fill in some gaps left by
>the removal of the Administrator's Guide. Timing of the publication is
>yet to be determined.
>
>We are also discussing how to fill the information needs for those who
>will not be using one of the four documented architectures. We already
>point to the 7.1.1 guides from newer releases but we realize this is
>not ideal. Possible actions include creating additional, supplemental
>information outside of the solution guides, similar to what we have
>done for the information about NDMP (
>http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGSG7_7.1.4/srv.admin/r_ndm
>p.html
>).
>
>What are the most important subjects from the old Administrator's Guide
>for us to consider? Knowing more specifics about your priorities would
>be very helpful to us for setting our priorities and plans. Web traffic
>for the content on IBM Knowledge Center gives us some information but
>not a complete picture of needs.
>
>Meanwhile, to make the 7.1.1 Administrator's Guide PDFs easier to find
>and download, today we added the five English PDFs to the Tivoli
>Storage Manager wiki. Find the links to them on this page:
>https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/
>Tivoli%20Storage%20Manager/page/Version%207.1.1%20PDF%20files%20of%20IB
>M%20Tivoli%20Storage%20Manager%20documentation
>
>The 7.1.1 Administrator's Guide PDFs are also still available in the
>711_411_PDFs.zip file that you can find at
>ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/products/TSM/current/
>The available translations are in the 711_411_PDFs_nl.zip file in the
>same directory. All this content (English and other languages) remains
>available online in IBM Knowledge Center at
>http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGSG7_7.1.1/com.ibm.itsm.sr
>v.common.doc/t_server_main.html
>
>PDFs for previous releases, including several unsupported levels, are
>also still available. Start on this page:
>https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/
>Tivoli%20Storage%20Manager/page/PDF%20documentation
>
>(Note: This wiki was unavailable for several days, starting on 11
>December. While the wiki is available again, restoration of some pages
>and links is still in progress. Unfortunately you might find some links
>that don't work, especially for the unsupported releases. I don't know
>the projected date for completion.)
>
>Clare Byrne
>Information Development for IBM Spectrum Protect Tucson, AZ US
>
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