You will find that Gigabit cards in the groupwise servers is the way to go
anyway.  If you figure out the SAN client software costs it will offset most
of the hardware cost for the Gigabit.  I have seen numbers has high as
55MB/sec on this even on a PC100 Intel Machine if you have good switching
technology.  You should be able to restore these in 30 minutes with good
hardware.  1GB per minute is easily achieveable.

You will find that the SAN connected disk can probably push the data over
the gigabit to the tape drives fast enough to keep them going.  Also, if the
Intel Machine is at least 1GB Memory and 2 600Mhz processors it will suck
the life out of those groupwise servers.  Depending on how many you have and
your overall TSM direction, the RS/6000 may not be required.  But, in any
case the FC 3590 is a good choice, expensive, but a good choice.

30GB is not a reason to implement SAN TAPE 100GB+ is.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Sheppard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 4:42 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Compaq SAN/Groupwise


I have just been tasked with coming up with a TSM solution to the following
problem.  We currently have two OS/390-based TSM servers and a 3494 with 10
magstar drives backing up 200+ AIX/Solaris/NT clients.

Our management has finally become disillusioned with the backup/restore
problems on some of our LANs.  Our LAN people have been allowed to do use
whatever they pleased for this function, meaning ARCSERVE since that's all
most of them know.  They recently deployed a Compaq SAN and were tasked with
consolidating several, God help us, Groupwise post- offices.

Apparently, Netware uses some proprietary file system (NSS?) which prevents
the post office from being backed up directly, so they make some sort of
'snapshot' like copy which can then be backed up. Problems with ARCSERVE
have stopped this consolidation in it's tracks until some other, more
reliable backup system can be implemented.  They need to restore these GW
post offices (20-30GB) in a relatively short period of time, not the 6+
hours currently seen.

We are looking to eventually replace most or all of their existing Arcserve
systems and have an alternative to increasing the load on our OS/390
servers.  I have tentatively suggested using their existing Win/NT machine
as a server with their SAN-attached DLT ATL to be replaced eventually with
an RS/6000 with connection to fibre-attached 3590s in our existing 3494.
However, I see that LAN-free backup in TSM does not support a Netware
client.

I know that this is an incomplete list of facts/requirements, but would
appreciate any comments/suggestions based on what I have been given so far,
particularly if anyone has heard of plans for further Netware support
(Lan-free) in Version 5.

Sam Sheppard
San Diego Data Processing Corp.
(858)-581-9668

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