Roger, I can understand the concept of looking into the existing H70 to see if resources exist to support a TSM solution. Being from a mainframe background, I can appreciate multi-tasking and maximization of computing resources. (Yawn. I feel I may be preaching to the choir!) First things first. Your Sybase workload is all on the first shift. When would your backup schedules be? Hopefully not on first shift!? If so, don't do it. If not, you may have a very nice opportunity to maximize the H70 resources. Next, look into the H70 itself and find out how much DASD can be used for TSM database and cache. Take a stab at 24 hours of backup cache and a sizable database (20GB). The backup cache must be sized to provide a days worth of backups from your TSM clients. Can additional DASD be added economically? Now, look at your tape library. You give little information about this. Keep in mind that once the data arrives at the TSM server you must provide a place to store it. This will vary by installation. Think also of automation. Can you add disaster recovery off site movement of tapes with little effort? We've only scraped the tip of the icecube. The bottom line is that I would look closely at your environment. You might very well be able to swing this! You might very well be digging a big hole, too!!! Please, let us know how you do!!! Regards, John G. Talafous IS Technical Principal The Timken Company Phone: (330)-471-3390 P.O. Box 6927 Fax : (330)-471-4034 1835 Dueber Ave. S.W. Canton, Ohio USA 44706-0927 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.timken.com/ -----Original Message----- From: Roger Perkins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 7:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Would you choose existing server hardware, or separate box for TSM? I am about to purchase a new TSM solution, and a suggestion has been made to utilize an existing IBM H70 box running a production Sybase database instead of purchasing a new box. The H70 is a model 7015-R00, uniprocessor, with 1GB of RAM, but I'm not sure how much DASD. I'm not certain how big the database is, but I know there are only 30 users, all on the first shift. The new tape library for TSM will be at least 120 slots/ 3 drives based on current workload and projected growth. With this little amount of information I've given, if you had a choice, would you consider installing TSM on the existing box, or purchase a separate box just for TSM? Why? Roger Perkins
