James, The biggest consideration which I know of, and have seen on here many many times, is the throughput capability of a Linux server. Your main thought here is not so much how many PCI slots are available but how many pci buses are available, as this is where your internal I/O limitations fall into place.
For example your Gb Ethernet interface, as this will be one of the highest I/O loaded adapters, should be on a difference PCI bus to the disks, and the disks should in an ideal world be separate to the tape drive interfaces, and then your tape drives should be split across buses... You also need to consider how many adapters you are running for your tape drives in that if you have two tape drives with a theoretical max transfer rate of 40MB/second, you wouldn't want to run two drives off an interface that is also only capable of 40MB/second as you could restrict the max perf of your drives. This is where your true midrange class machine falls into place as, taking AIX & RS/6000 for example, the PCI slots are available in drawers, so you could start with a couple of drawers, and add more should your environment require it. I am not very familiar with Wintel systems, but I am fairly certain (although willing to be proven wrong) that there are either very view, or possibly no Wintel boxes with this kind of expandability. Hope this provides so food for thought! Many thanks Andy Wilcox UNIX Systems Administrator Midlands Electricity -----Original Message----- From: James R Owen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 31 March 2004 15:23 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ?Linux TSM service to backup >100 clients to disk->tape? Hi Linux TSM Sys.Admins! None of you responded to my previous query, so I'm trying again. We are considering to use RedHat EL 3.0 on IA32/64 platform (rather than AIX on p-series) to host an additional I/O intensive TSM service (to split our current service and handle half of future growth.) We are hoping to build based upon others' experiences. Are you already using or actively planning to use Linux (RedHat EL 3?) to host an I/O intensive TSM service similar to any described under the recent ADSM-L thread, "Sizing an AIX platform and tape libraries"? If not, do you have a Linux TSM service backing up >100 clients to disk -> tape storage? Please describe what you have and what limits you think might apply to your set up (or reply w/ a phone# if you would rather just talk.) Thanks for any advice you care to share! -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (203.432.6693) = = = from my previous posting = = = We believe we are approaching the maximum that can be achieved w/ TSM: v5.2.1.3 OS: AIX 5.1 (64bit) CPU: IBM 7025-6F1 w/ 4 * 750Mhz proc's + 3GB RAM SAN: 1 Gb w/ EMC Symmetrix 8830 LAN: 1 Gb Ethernet ATL: IBM 3494 w/ 6 * 3590E drives IBM 3584 w/ 4 * 3580 LTO1 + 2 * 3580 LTO2 drives This configuration is successfully supporting our current ITS TSM service (see details below), but we believe we either need a major performance boost or to split this load onto an additional host platform: Linux, Win*, or must we remain w/ AIX for I/O performance? to handle expected additional growth. Which platform have you chosen (or would you choose) for similar TSM service? Yale ITS TSM Service: -------------------- Active Clients: 2400 <= 3d, 2500 <= 7d, 2700 <= 35days Servers: 151 WinNT,2K* 105 Linux 20 Solaris 9 AIX 7 SQL-BT (Oracle) 3 Mac 2 TDP's: MSSQL,MSexchg: 2 + 1 [new] 2 Personals: 2549 WinNT,2K*,XP 2230 Win98,ME 26 Mac 183 Linux 50 Solaris 5 AIX,DEC*X,HPUX,IRIX: 1 ea. [new] 51 Expected growth: +500-600 clients for several years +20% data for existing clients/year? TSM DB: 75.7% of 160GB BAckup DB w/ LTO1 HCmpr. takes 2.3h EXPIre Inv examines ~6M obj, deletes ~1M obj. in 8-9h Disk STGpools: 600 + 180GB Nightly Backup Period: 15:30-08:00+ Weeknight Backup Load: 500-650GB+ Thanks for any experience/insight you are willing to share with us! -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] (203.432.6693) **************************************************************************** ************************ Confidentiality: This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. 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