I am just trying to consider all the pros/cons of having multiple copy storage pools per primary pool. I was considering having one copy storage pool that never gets taken offsite (remains in the library), and two copy pools that get checked out and set to "offsite". Obviously, the pros are that, in the event of a disaster, you have multiple offsite storage pools offsite, and volumes that are destroyed, damaged, or lost in transit to your recovery center are duplicated in the storage pool set that remained offsite. Additionally, the onsite copy storage pool can be used to restore damaged primary storage pool tapes.
For a recent disaster recovery test, I made a second copy of an offsite storage pool, so we wouldn't have to take the only offsite tapes that existed. During the recovery process (for which I was creating the procedures on the fly), I ran into a snag. The secondary copy pool tapes I took didn't have all of the data that existed in its primary, or the "real" offsite copy pool (this was known ahead of time). I set the volumes in the primary storage pool to "destroyed", and tried to recover some files. When I got to the point where the files the client wished to recover were only in the copy pool that was back home, TSM requested we checkin, and mount that volume. At the time, my work around was to delete the volumes (discarddata=yes) in the storage pool that was back home, since an access of "destroyed" is not allowed for copy pool volumes. This allowed me to restore the files. I am now wondering if simply setting the volumes to "unavailable" instead of "offsite" would have worked. If you have input on this, I would like to hear it. According to the TSM Help system, if you set a sequential volume to unavailable, TSM will not attempt to mount the volume. That sounds pretty cut and dry, but without a safe way to test that, I don't want to include that in any procedures I create for DR. Thanks in advance, Todd
