Enterprise Backup Solutions?

[khalidaaa]

Hi Aixers,

I've been assigned to plan for an Enterprise Backup Solution for my company! I would like to know what type of Backup does every one over there use? and is there any advices to follow?

I would think of TSM at the start but i will wait for your replies.

We have mostly windows and AIX OSs.

Regards,
Khalid

 

[mrn]

Netbackup

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."

 

[p5wizard]

TSM


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[Gloups]

TSM

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

tsm, windows and AIX boxes, tsm server resides on AIX

 

[DukeSSD]

As RMGBELGIUM

 

[khalidaaa]

Thank you very much guys

I guess its TSM for now then!

Is there any reason why tsm over other products?

 

[DukeSSD]

IBM hardware, IBM software (at least AIX in our case, and you probably realise what MS backup solutions are like!) so it must be less hassle to use an IBM backup solution, oh, and it works as well as anything else out there.

As IBM provide just about all hardware and software solutions (i, p, z, x - MS windows, oh and linux / UNIX on all of the above) they are in a good position to provide a good backup solution for all of their products (that is why IBM bought Tivoli - the T in TSM).

You could go to some other vendor but what real experience would they have in a real enterprise backup solution? They might be good on a backup program for a few platforms, or they might specialise in tape solutions and punt some other companies software but I think only TSM (ideally with an IBM storage solution behind it) can handle all the stuff you are likely to need to backup if you have any kind of complex environment.

AIX TSM server, backed up by a 34xx or 35xx library and you can securely backup just about anything and stand a good chance or recovering it as well!

There was an investigation into industry backup strategy / solutions a few (maybe more than a few by now - I can't believe how old I have gotten recently) years ago and they reckoned only 50% of companies have a viable backup solution and of those only 50% (we are down to 25% by now, 50% of 50% is 25%) stand a good chance of actually being able to utilise those backups.

Now (these days) most important systems are backed up in some form or another but that is only worth spending the time on if you actually stand a chance of being able to use that backup.

i.e. you backup your system over the network to a SAN / TSM solution, brilliant.
How do you restore from a SAN attached tape drive?
Well you can’t boot from it so you install the OS from mksysb - oh, that is in the SAN tape drive which you can't boot from, so you do a base install from CD, where is the CD when you have driven 200 miles in the middle of a wet night to get to the machine, of course the Base AIX CDs are in your desk, 20 minutes from where you started....

So you install the OS and get it on the network but the CDs you used are 5.x-ML3 and your mksysb image is too big to boot and at 5.x ML5 so you can't even do a migration, useless.

Think damned hard before you spend thousands on a solution that at best will only allow you to restore a few files!

 

[mbourne2006]

Hi

TSM works nicely with NIM and TSM for System Backup & Recovery (SYSBACK). Basically, NIM clients can squirt mksysb images to TSM, and can pull them back from network boot. If AIX DR is your concern, you might want to look more closely at SYSBACK, TSM, and NIM

HTH


Kind Regards,
Matthew Bourne
"Find a job you love and never do a day's work in your life.

 

[khalidaaa]

Thanks all and special thanks to DukeSSD for the nice advice

I'm using the NIM as my system backup solution and normal tapes for the daily data backup!

we used to have a machine that was supposed to run TSM and it did for sometimes but then the tape library didn't support the latest AIX (which was i believe any thing above 5.1) so the plan was a failure! so now our management are somehow sensitive about rethinking of the TSM as a solution! I know i will have a hard time to convience an old minded management but i will give it a try

Thanks all again

Regards,
Khalid

 

[DukeSSD]

If you need help call your IBM salesman (salesperson) and let them know about the potential TSM solution sale and ask them to lend you a TSM solution specialist to convince your management that TSM is the way to go, they are likely to be very interested in helping you if you have more than a few machines to look after.
IBM will want your business as much as you need a reliable backup solution.

 

[ProbablyDown]

TSM will reliably back up anything you need

Direct san backups
Netapp backups
Any O/S backups

I've used it for years...

Used Commvault, veritas... they weren't as good.

 

[khalidaaa]

Oh yeah good idea! i know how these salesmen are when it comes to selling ideas

Thanks DuckSSD again

and thanks ProbablyDown

Regards,
Khalid

 

[hfaix]

TSM running on AIX is sufficient for our shop (50 AIX servers, 300+ Win servers).