"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <[email protected]> wrote on 07/30/2007 03:00:02 PM: > > Here's some perspective from someone who's currently transitioning from > Networker to TSM.
Dave, thanks for the very informative email. Many years ago we ran Legato Networker. I've stayed out of this discussion because my knowledge of Networker is VERY old. I believe we were running the last v5 release - v6 had just been released and we didn't install it. This was way before EMC purchased Legato. I tell our EMC reps (we use EMC disk systems) that I have fond memories of running Networker. I actually liked it in many ways. Why did we get rid if it? That's complicated . . . . 1) Bad support. At that time, before EMC purchased it, Legato support was bad. I have never before or since experience such bad support. You know things are bad when the head of the company writes a letter to all customers apologizing for the bad support!!! 2) Licensing costs. We originally just backed up IBM AIX systems. We were about to start consolidating multiple different backup system for Windows, Netware and some odd ball systems. If we used networker, our costs were going to explode for all the nickel-and-dime licensing issues you mentioned. . . . but . . . None of those were going to make up for the cost of converting. What REALLY hurt us was client scheduling, client management, and remote backups. Our Networker system had grown to around 100 clients. I was the only person managing it. Since Networker only wrote straight to tape (the initial piece of disk staging had just been added, but was unusable), I was spending an awful lot of time juggling schedules. Oh how I hated that - Fulls, differentials, incrementals. Some on weekly fulls, others on monthly fulls, a few on multi-month fulls. Many servers had multiple node setups to allow different schedules for different filesystems with different retentions. Trying to balance all this in pools for timely expiration. (I remember the problems of mixed expiration perionds on the same tape very well!) Trying to balance the schedules so as to keep enough load to keep the tape drives spinning at full speed (multiplex backups). At about 100 clients I was buried in managing what amounted to a small Networker setup. We had decided to do centralized backups for remote sites across our wan. We were not going to put tape drives and libraries out at remote sites. So, given that Networker had to do full backups on some schedule, as the remote servers grew the backup traffic started to kill the wan, and, killed the tape drives with slow throughput. (I believe Networker now has synthetic full support.) We had to do something different. We did a study!!! FOR OUR NEEDS, TSM quickly climbed to the top of the list. Incremental forever with disk staging made scheduling a breeze and remote backups doable. There is much I don't like about TSM, but to this point it fits our needs very well. And this is my recommendation - CAREFULLY analyze your needs as you look at other backup programs. Make sure you can map your needs to the products features!!! Again, this all about a very old release of Network. Please don't apply these comments to the current release!! I'm just trying to tell the story of why we changed in the hope that it might be of some little benefit. Rick ----------------------------------------- The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
