If you are using FC connectivity to the Netapp, TSM will see it like any other hard drive. (That's a different case than using it via CIFS or NFS mount.)
The question is how much speed you need, and whether your Netapp can give you that speed. (This is pretty much true of any external array, not just a Netapp.) What you should do, is figure out how much data you have coming in to your TSM server, and how fast you need to get it written to the Netapp. Tell your Netapp salesperson EXACTLY what your requirements are: that you need to write xxx gigabytes of data to that box in yyy hours, then read the data back (or replicate it or write to tape or however you create your offsite copy) in the next zzz hours. If you expect that box to be doing anything else (like concurrently doing dedup or backup stgpool or reclaims), tell them that as well (although you should hold off that activity until after your backup window, unless you back up round the clock.) Then the Netapp person should commit to you, IN WRITING, that the box he configures for you will provide you that throughput rate. Then if it doesn't, it's THEIR problem, and they will have to stand by the box and make it perform or give you an upgrade. Some of the old NEtapps were quite slow and made terrible TSM pools, but I believe a Netapp today can be configured to provide pretty much whatever throughput you need, with the proper disks and the proper amount of cache. The usual reason people get into performance problems with the hardware they buy for TSM is that they don't ever specify the throughput rate they require and get the sales folks to commit to it. The salespeople SHOULD make that commitment, or you shouldn't buy from them (and I haven't run into any major manufacturers that won't make that commitment, if the requirements are stated clearly.) W -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mayhew, James Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 9:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] NetApp for Primary Disk Pool Yes, when I mentioned block storage I was referring to FC connectivity to the NetApp for the TSM server. Also, it should be noted that we plan to use native TSM deduplication as well. The reason for this is that we use TSM for VE and want to speed up our periodic full backups by using client side dedupe. Do any of you see any potential pitfalls with this use case? Best Regards, James Mayhew Storage Engineer HealthPlan Services E-mail: [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Mayhew, James Sent: Monday, August 27, 2012 4:28 PM To: '[email protected]' Subject: RE: NetApp for Primary Disk Pool BUMP... Does anyone have thoughts on this? From: Mayhew, James Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 6:42 PM To: '[email protected]' Subject: NetApp for Primary Disk Pool Hello All, We are considering using a NetApp V6210 with some attached shelves as a block storage TSM primary disk pool. Do any of you have any experience using NetApp storage as a TSM primary disk pool? If so, how was your experience with this solution? Did you have any performance issues? How was it with sequential workloads? Any insight that you all can provide is greatly appreciated. Best Regards, James Mayhew Storage Engineer HealthPlan Services E-mail: [email protected] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender by e-mail at the address shown.This email transmission may contain confidential information.This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entity to whom it is intended even if addressed incorrectly. Please delete it from your files if you are not the intended recipient. Thank you for your compliance.
