TSM Full Backup Dilemma

[jkc924]

Hello,
Doing a full backup of aix server nightly. Number of objects inspected is always higher than the number of objects backed up. There are no excludes and the dsmsched.log does not show any "skipped" or "failed" files and nothing shows up in the dsmerror.log.
It is usually close to 3000-4000 files different.
What is not getting backed up and why (if it is truly doing a full backup)?

 

[comtec17]

How are you doing fulls with TSM? Are you doing Archives or Selectives?

 

[gwichman]

TSM doesn't normally do full backups so comtec17 is asking the right question. Do you understand how TSM works? As the client traverses your file system to backup the files, it communicates with the TSM server to find out if that file has been backed up before or not. TSM WILL NOT back up a file if it has not changed. I suspect the 3000-4000 files you're seeing are in fact not being backed up because they have not changed from the last time a backup was run. This "skipping" of these files does not appear in the log files.

The only entries you should see in the log files are files that fail to backup because they were open at the time of the backup and you have TSM configured to not backup open files (default behavior.. which can also be changed). Or if you change the retention settings you may see "rebinding" occuring on files you've already backed up (it's updating their retention settings). Or you may see files "expiring" when TSM determines they have exceeded your configured retention time settings for that file.

bottom line is if you didnt already know all of the above, i HIGHLY recommend you start reading the TSM Admin Guide for the version of TSM that you're using. It explains it all and is easy reading.. TSM is not like your typical backup app in that it does not do your typical GFS rotation.