> We already Mirror the volumes to our DR site for that purpose
> but also need
> a solution that provide Point in Time recovery for
> Application data. So
> we're interested a solution the will do that.  that works
> with our ATL.  we
> use Tivoli on the z/OS now but from what I've read Tivoli and
> VM don't play
> well.

Only politically. TSM started life as a VM product, and if the Tivoli
people would ...never mind. My blood pressure is high enough as it is,
and that corpse is getting pretty bloody at this point.

If you already are paying for TSM on z/OS and can afford to buy another
standard engine processor every so often as the CPU requirement
increases, then you already have your answer. It's got the bells and
whistles you want, and silo integration via your standard tape
management system on z/OS. It costs an arm and a leg, besides being a
resource hog for client and server, but it's installed and working, so
you don't have to do anything other than offer it a sacrificial CPU
upgrade every so often.

> I am not a Tape expert by any means but am trying to understand the
> interactions better and to help recommend a solution.
> Currently I know we use Veritas Netbackup on the AIX side of
> the house but
> understand that does not talk to the ATL (please correct me
> if I'm wrong)

Depends on whether you have appropriate physical interfaces to the ATL.
Veritas is certainly capable of driving most of the major ATLs if
connectivity to the ATL is available for the Veritas host and you're
willing to give up a couple of drives to dedicate to the non-mainframe
hosts (most of the ATLs can't share drives between ESCON/FICON hosts and
SCSI/FCP hosts). It also involves buying a rather expensive silo license
feature for Netbackup. You can go that route for your Linux/390 guests
(there is a Veritas client for Linux/390), but the data will go out the
network to the Veritas server and back to the ATL, which will be a
serious load on your backup network capacity.

> If at all possible I'd really like what some of you would do
> (if money was
> not a concern) and you needed to be able to.
> Backup/Restore an Linux Image
> Backup/Restore an Application with all it's configs
> Backup/Restore application data
> Taking advantage of the ATL if possible
> leveraging the VM and z/OS as much as possible.

If I had unlimited money and could buy as much hardware and software as
I want, I'd go with TSM on z/OS driving the ATL with a Linux TSM server
as an aggregator doing only server-to-server transfers and client
interaction. I'd connect the Linux TSM server to the z/OS TSM server via
hipersockets, and the clients to the Linux TSM server via VSWITCHes.
Very elegant, very fast recovery, uses the maximum amount of existing
infrastructure in the most efficient manner. Very, *very* costly,
however.

(I'd also be asking Tivoli when they're going to buy a clue and bring
the VM TSM server up to date (which runs completely on IFLs, already
knows how to talk to the $500K ATL you already have with the tape drives
you already have via the ESCON/FICON connections you already have, and
doesn't involve consuming unbelievably expensive standard engine cycles
just to do basic backups....), but that's just my crusader streak
showing, I guess. *sigh*)

If you run FDR on your z/OS system, I'd look closely at Innovation's
Linux backup product. If you've already got a z/OS system, it's slick,
fast, well integrated, and moderately priced.

If I were looking at a realistic implementation (ie one where cost
matters most), I'd use Bacula, NFS-mounted HFS partitions from z/OS with
the HFS automounter active to allow HSM to get it's hands on the file
spaces containing the virtual tapes, and DFSMShsm on z/OS to do the
actual tape management until I could port the Bacula storage server to
USS and do the tape I/O direct to the z/OS system.

If you're coming to the z/Expo in Miami this November, I'll be doing a
session on Amanda, Bacula, Linux DR and playing nice with z/OS (session
L83). Come and ask questions -- I like good debate.

-- db


-- db

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