Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Netbackup from Symantec would be TSM's major competitor. You could also look at CommVault. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of woodbm Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:11 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: alternatives to TSM due to license costs Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Note: Please be aware that unencrypted electronic mail is not secure. For this reason, please do not send any sensitive personal information such as your address, drivers license, policy number, Social Security Number, or claims information by unencrypted electronic mail. The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you. --
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
+1 on the challenge!! We were audited, and what a nightmare at first. They tried to charge us for boxes that had been retired, but were unlocked for legal restore reasons, they also tried to inflate the cost of clustered boxes and TDP setups. You only have to pay for cores on the ACTIVE nodes of a cluster. Now if both are active then you pay for both, but if you run, as we do, active/passive clusters you only pay for the node with the higher number of cpu/cores. At times our passive node will not have the resources assigned to it the primary node has. I kept challenging and pushing back on them, and they finally sent me to another crew that had more sense. Once we agreed that IBM's licensing statements were valid because that's what we used to purchase, things were good. We even had a few extra. Not only that, but despite their assertions you DO NOT have to buy your licenses from them, you can get a quote and buy from your normal reseller so your normal discounts apply. See Ya' Howard Coles Jr. John 3:16! -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Remco Post Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 4:15 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs On 30 dec 2009, at 20:11, woodbm wrote: Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. there are a few products that people try to compare TSM to; Networker, Netbackup and CommVault come to mind. Keep in mind that all of these require full backups at some interval, occupying much more tape that TSM does. So when presenting alternatives, do not only consider licensing cost but also the cost of media, servers, network etc. Also keep in mind that some products are disk to tape only, requiring you to have at least one tape drive for each concurrent backup/restore session, or implement expensive VTL solutions while TSM doesn't need one. (The IBM VTS for the mainframe was running ADSM for a reason!). Licensing schemes for these products are completely different. While IBM charges for cpu's, competitors also charge for functionality, such as archiving? drm? The number of volumes you can manage in a library? The number of drives? etc. Look into what you need and make sure you have the total picture. As a word of advise, make sure that the audit is correct. I've seen IBM try to charge customers for TDP for databases for DB2, while everybody knows that there is no such product! If in doubt, challenge the audit results, this might be worth the effort. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
On 30 dec 2009, at 20:11, woodbm wrote: Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. there are a few products that people try to compare TSM to; Networker, Netbackup and CommVault come to mind. Keep in mind that all of these require full backups at some interval, occupying much more tape that TSM does. So when presenting alternatives, do not only consider licensing cost but also the cost of media, servers, network etc. Also keep in mind that some products are disk to tape only, requiring you to have at least one tape drive for each concurrent backup/restore session, or implement expensive VTL solutions while TSM doesn't need one. (The IBM VTS for the mainframe was running ADSM for a reason!). Licensing schemes for these products are completely different. While IBM charges for cpu's, competitors also charge for functionality, such as archiving? drm? The number of volumes you can manage in a library? The number of drives? etc. Look into what you need and make sure you have the total picture. As a word of advise, make sure that the audit is correct. I've seen IBM try to charge customers for TDP for databases for DB2, while everybody knows that there is no such product! If in doubt, challenge the audit results, this might be worth the effort. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
This has been discussed many times, where you can search the List archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/adsm-l@vm.marist.edu/ and similar sites for key terms such as netbackup and backup products to review past explorations of the topic.
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
At least let IBM know you are thinking about jumping ship and that they need to help with the pricing on the new licenses or you are gone! You have the leverage at this point so you might as well use it to your advantage. Based on our many competitive situations along the way with our appliance we do this all the time. For the low end, TSM is not a good fit generally. However, if you have more than 50 clients then TSM is a good fit for the reasons Remco states. Taking a giant step back to the 20th century with your backups (which is what you'll be doing with any other product) is generally a bad idea. Oh, IBM! Are you listening? The current licensing scheme is just killing us! Stop the madness before we lose more of our installed base. Stop the madness before I lose another Appliance deal! Kelly Lipp Chief Technology Officer www.storserver.com 719-266-8777 x7105 STORServer solves your data backup challenges. Once and for all. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Remco Post Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 3:15 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs On 30 dec 2009, at 20:11, woodbm wrote: Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. there are a few products that people try to compare TSM to; Networker, Netbackup and CommVault come to mind. Keep in mind that all of these require full backups at some interval, occupying much more tape that TSM does. So when presenting alternatives, do not only consider licensing cost but also the cost of media, servers, network etc. Also keep in mind that some products are disk to tape only, requiring you to have at least one tape drive for each concurrent backup/restore session, or implement expensive VTL solutions while TSM doesn't need one. (The IBM VTS for the mainframe was running ADSM for a reason!). Licensing schemes for these products are completely different. While IBM charges for cpu's, competitors also charge for functionality, such as archiving? drm? The number of volumes you can manage in a library? The number of drives? etc. Look into what you need and make sure you have the total picture. As a word of advise, make sure that the audit is correct. I've seen IBM try to charge customers for TDP for databases for DB2, while everybody knows that there is no such product! If in doubt, challenge the audit results, this might be worth the effort. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Hello Bryan, This is an interesting topic. Here are several thoughts and questions. Licensing for NetBackup is also based on the class of the server and the class of the clients. The pricing keeps changing as some things that used to have a separate optional cost are merged into the base cost. As Both IBM and Symantec like to use 3rd party sellers it might also be interesting to find the best price. EMC's Avamar and Symantec's Pure disk are a little bit more like TSM in that they only do incremental backups. They take this a bit further alone then TSM in that they do block or segment incremental backups. They are a little different in that the block/segment is single instance across all backup clients covered by a backup server. I wonder if IBM is going to add this feature. Note this is not media or storage pool dedupe which Avamar, Pure disk and TSM support. They are also like TSM in that they require a data base to hold the meta-data. But different in that they hold the data blocks/segments also. This makes things interesting in that as far as I can tell a full backup of the backup server is not possible other than by replication. This make things interesting if one worries about backup server database corruption due to a software bug. I believe that comm vault also supports this backup model. But they are a little bit different in that they will move the data from the backup server to tape in the dedupe format, where the others reconstitute the deduped data before writing the data to tape. I am not sure if Syncsort and FDR also play in this game. In the Microsoft only world, Microsoft now sells a vss based product that works on windows and windows data base products including Exchange and Sharepoint. The last I heard they do not support other products such as Oracle DB and IBM DB/2. One could also look at hardware solutions from vendors such as data domain and netapp for many of one's backup needs. Not as full featured as the above products, has anyone been looking at the open sourced products? len -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of woodbm Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:11 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search? I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Bryan, When you ask a TSM forum to recommend some alternative to TSM, that is sort of like asking a devoutly religious man to recommend some religion that is better than his. :-) What kind of answer do you really expect to get? One alternative to TSM that hasn't been mentioned yet is Avamar, a deduplication appliance sold by EMC. I don't work for EMC, or a company who sells EMC products, so this is not a shrouded sales pitch. Last year I led our TSM Team in a proof-of-concept of Avamar, so that is the only reason I know about it. We are not running it in production today, so I am not expert in my opinion. The reason we looked at Avamar was because our management was disgruntled about a TSM license audit we had to endure. Avamar is a disk-only solution, so you will need enough disk space for your entire backup set, because you can't migrate data to tape. But because it is deduplicating the data on the way in, it requires only a fraction of the disk space. For regular filesystem type data, sometimes it is only 1/20th as much disk; for database data it may be much less; for image data it might not deduplicate much at all. If you are backing up VMs, where many of them were built from the same image, the deduplication may be like 1/100th as much disk. So the kind of data you are backing up has a lot to do with how well it deduplicates. EMC has some tools to help size your solution. Most deduplication appliances work like a network share or a VTL, so you have to have a regular backup product in front of them to feed them data. But Avamar provides it's own clients that run on the servers you are backing up. They also have all the special clients you need to backup databases, etc. That is the thing that made me want to look at Avamar at all. We weren't going to have to pay for TSM licenses, then also pay for the deduplication applicance and all the hardware and software maintencance for all that, too. The company I work for did a proof-of-concept of Avamar, as I said. We spent months and tested Windows, Linux, AIX, SQL, Oracle and Exchange clients and they all worked like we expected them to. We didn't run into any problems with how the appliance worked. We also tested the automated replication from one appliance to another appliance about 3 hours away, and that worked well, too. We have not purchased yet, but only because of budget reasons. We liked the product and will pull the trigger as soon as money becomes available. In our situation, the cost of purchasing Avamar new was higher than paying maintenance on TSM licenses. The licensing scheme for Avamar is totally simple, too. You pay for the capacity of Avamar disk space you buy. That is it. The more drawers of space you buy, the higher the price. There is no charge for any of the client software agents, and it doesn't matter how many servers you are backing up, or how big they are. That is all built in to the capacity pricing. That is another reason I like Avamar. They have kept that part extremely simple. One thing about Avamar is that the reporting is weak. They give you basic reports, but they aren't pretty. If you want pretty, you will have to buy an add-on product like EMC Data Protection Manager, which has a lot of features, but will jack up the price. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Cell: (314) 750-8721 Original Message Subject: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs From: woodbm tsm-fo...@backupcentral.com Date: Wed, December 30, 2009 1:11 pm To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
- Len Boyle len.bo...@sas.com wrote: Not as full featured as the above products, has anyone been looking at the open sourced products? We use Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/) for the smaller customers (and internally) since it does all we need it to do - but note there's some major limitations in capability. It has proved to be reliable and simple to maintain, but for larger customers the volume of data transfer and storage makes it more cost effective to use TSM. So far we've not found any open product that does an incremental forever backup, but are continually looking.
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
If you have a lot of Windows clients, look at TSM's FASTBACK. It is also disk only, but I believe is cheaper than straight TSM. Does incremental-only, block-level backups. Might save you $$ and not be as drastic a conversion. You could keep your non-WIndows clients as they are. ALso consider if you are planning to move to a Virtual environment sometime soon, a lot of your TSM licenses will disappear. You only pay for the TSM licenses on your ESX server(s), not a license for each client image. At least if there is the possibility of virtualization in your future, be sure to compare what the costs will be AFTER virtualization, between TSM and other products. W On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Xav Paice xpa...@oss.co.nz wrote: - Len Boyle len.bo...@sas.com wrote: Not as full featured as the above products, has anyone been looking at the open sourced products? We use Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/) for the smaller customers (and internally) since it does all we need it to do - but note there's some major limitations in capability. It has proved to be reliable and simple to maintain, but for larger customers the volume of data transfer and storage makes it more cost effective to use TSM. So far we've not found any open product that does an incremental forever backup, but are continually looking.
Re: Alternatives to TSM
I hate my mushroom* status. The old price we doubled from was a 7-month pro-rated price to align us with our new fiscal year, which means the price we rejected was a 58% discount over last year. * (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_management) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Conway, Timothy Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:31 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM IBM just doubled our maintenance, so we're getting rid of TSM wholesale and rearchitecting all pending IBM purchases for other platforms. I had made and won the case for keeping it as our solution despite the expense, at the level we were at through 2007, but there's no discussion for this change. I can't show an instantaneous doubling of the value derived. An economic downturn is not the time to try to double your margin on an existing product and customer base. Any suggestions? 73, Tim Conway Unix sysadmin, TSM admin Swift Company 9705067998 timothy.con...@jbssa.com
Re: Alternatives to TSM
At one of the shops I was in, TSM maintenance cost expectation was set by competitive takeout pricing. When maintenance renewal time came around, and we fell out of the original pricing lock, the price difference was a shock. In fairness though, I also needed to renew maintenance on Symantec Netbackup not too long ago. The only way I could get a discount off list, was to get a general corporate software discount through Dell. (About 4% IIRC.) Back in 2008, the consensus was that 2009 would be a down year. With net-new and expansion sales being so far down, I'm not surprised everyone is trying to get every renewal dollar they can. Even people who jump ship and move from one product to another are generating new revenue. What a time to bring something like TSM 6.x to market! When will the price go up to offset all the new features? [RC] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Conway, Timothy Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 10:31 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM IBM just doubled our maintenance, so we're getting rid of TSM wholesale and rearchitecting all pending IBM purchases for other platforms. I had made and won the case for keeping it as our solution despite the expense, at the level we were at through 2007, but there's no discussion for this change. I can't show an instantaneous doubling of the value derived. An economic downturn is not the time to try to double your margin on an existing product and customer base. Any suggestions? 73, Tim Conway Unix sysadmin, TSM admin Swift Company 9705067998 timothy.con...@jbssa.com DISCLAIMER: This message is intended for the sole use of the addressee, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the addressee you are hereby notified that you may not use, copy, disclose, or distribute to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received this message in error, please immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete this message.
Re: Alternatives to TSM
This is especially true in AIX on a partitioned P590 or 595. See Ya' Howard -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of David Longo Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 7:04 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM One other mistake that is easy to make, and the mistake is always to give higher processor count and price, is to not distinguish Hyper-threading on Windows boxes. Many tools can't tell the difference, and therefore you would end up paying for 8 processor cores on a 4 core server. David Longo
Alternatives to TSM
IBM just doubled our maintenance, so we're getting rid of TSM wholesale and rearchitecting all pending IBM purchases for other platforms. I had made and won the case for keeping it as our solution despite the expense, at the level we were at through 2007, but there's no discussion for this change. I can't show an instantaneous doubling of the value derived. An economic downturn is not the time to try to double your margin on an existing product and customer base. Any suggestions? 73, Tim Conway Unix sysadmin, TSM admin Swift Company 9705067998 timothy.con...@jbssa.com
Re: Alternatives to TSM
Look at Avamar from EMC. I don't know how expensive it is, and it'll take a re-architecting of your Storage (from tape to Disk), but it's one of many. See Ya' Howard -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Conway, Timothy Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:31 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM IBM just doubled our maintenance, so we're getting rid of TSM wholesale and rearchitecting all pending IBM purchases for other platforms. I had made and won the case for keeping it as our solution despite the expense, at the level we were at through 2007, but there's no discussion for this change. I can't show an instantaneous doubling of the value derived. An economic downturn is not the time to try to double your margin on an existing product and customer base. Any suggestions? 73, Tim Conway Unix sysadmin, TSM admin Swift Company 9705067998 timothy.con...@jbssa.com
Re: Alternatives to TSM
We are just finishing a Proof of Concept on Avamar, EMC's deduplication offering. We have not made the decision to purchase, but the testing went very well. It is better than most deduplication appliances because it actually has it's own backup client, so you can eliminate TSM licenses and shrink your TSM environment as you deploy it. Along with Unix, Windows, and Linux clients, it has special clients for Oracle RMAN, SQL, Exchange, etc. We do not have a goal to eliminate TSM entirely, but it is growing rapidly and Avamar will contain the growth with better efficiency than buying more regular disk and tape. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Phone: 314-364-3150 Cell: 314-750-8721 Email: john.schnei...@mercy.net -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Howard Coles Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:06 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM Look at Avamar from EMC. I don't know how expensive it is, and it'll take a re-architecting of your Storage (from tape to Disk), but it's one of many. See Ya' Howard -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Conway, Timothy Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:31 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM IBM just doubled our maintenance, so we're getting rid of TSM wholesale and rearchitecting all pending IBM purchases for other platforms. I had made and won the case for keeping it as our solution despite the expense, at the level we were at through 2007, but there's no discussion for this change. I can't show an instantaneous doubling of the value derived. An economic downturn is not the time to try to double your margin on an existing product and customer base. Any suggestions? 73, Tim Conway Unix sysadmin, TSM admin Swift Company 9705067998 timothy.con...@jbssa.com This e-mail contains information which (a) may be PROPRIETARY IN NATURE OR OTHERWISE PROTECTED BY LAW FROM DISCLOSURE, and (b) is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) named above. If you are not the addressee, or the person responsible for delivering this to the addressee(s), you are notified that reading, copying or distributing this e-mail is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact the sender immediately.
Re: Alternatives to TSM
Fortunately for us, our renewal hasn't gone up all that much. So, I don't think we're in any danger of dumping TSM as it stands. However, I try to not get married to any one product, that way the split up isn't as expensive. :-D I haven't heard any pricing for the Avamar stuff, would you mind sharing some round figures? See Ya' Howard -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:39 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM We are just finishing a Proof of Concept on Avamar, EMC's deduplication offering. We have not made the decision to purchase, but the testing went very well. It is better than most deduplication appliances because it actually has it's own backup client, so you can eliminate TSM licenses and shrink your TSM environment as you deploy it. Along with Unix, Windows, and Linux clients, it has special clients for Oracle RMAN, SQL, Exchange, etc. We do not have a goal to eliminate TSM entirely, but it is growing rapidly and Avamar will contain the growth with better efficiency than buying more regular disk and tape. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Phone: 314-364-3150 Cell: 314-750-8721 Email: john.schnei...@mercy.net -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Howard Coles Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:06 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM Look at Avamar from EMC. I don't know how expensive it is, and it'll take a re-architecting of your Storage (from tape to Disk), but it's one of many. See Ya' Howard -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Conway, Timothy Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:31 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM IBM just doubled our maintenance, so we're getting rid of TSM wholesale and rearchitecting all pending IBM purchases for other platforms. I had made and won the case for keeping it as our solution despite the expense, at the level we were at through 2007, but there's no discussion for this change. I can't show an instantaneous doubling of the value derived. An economic downturn is not the time to try to double your margin on an existing product and customer base. Any suggestions? 73, Tim Conway Unix sysadmin, TSM admin Swift Company 9705067998 timothy.con...@jbssa.com This e-mail contains information which (a) may be PROPRIETARY IN NATURE OR OTHERWISE PROTECTED BY LAW FROM DISCLOSURE, and (b) is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) named above. If you are not the addressee, or the person responsible for delivering this to the addressee(s), you are notified that reading, copying or distributing this e-mail is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact the sender immediately.
Re: Alternatives to TSM
On Feb 24, 2009, at 19:30 , Conway, Timothy wrote: IBM just doubled our maintenance. what happened? IBM has not increased the maintenance fees. Last year they increased by I believe 1% per license. So your environment doubled in size and now you have to pay twice as much to IBM for TSM support? -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: Alternatives to TSM
No increase in environment. I think this is the result of secretive pricing meets budget cuts. That's the only way I can see dropping support on 18 out of 20 products and having the price double. I also think it was inappropriate for me to post the question here. This is not the place to incite or invite a bash IBM thread. Sorry. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Remco Post Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:02 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM On Feb 24, 2009, at 19:30 , Conway, Timothy wrote: IBM just doubled our maintenance. what happened? IBM has not increased the maintenance fees. Last year they increased by I believe 1% per license. So your environment doubled in size and now you have to pay twice as much to IBM for TSM support? -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: Alternatives to TSM
On Feb 24, 2009, at 22:34 , Conway, Timothy wrote: No increase in environment. I think this is the result of secretive pricing meets budget cuts. Last time IBM made me an offer, they specified both list price and discount. They have done it that way for years, no secrets about it. I don't understand what happened, and I sure as hell can't relate that to anything I've ever experienced. Not with TSM licenses. -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: Alternatives to TSM
I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Remco Post Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:55 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM On Feb 24, 2009, at 22:34 , Conway, Timothy wrote: No increase in environment. I think this is the result of secretive pricing meets budget cuts. Last time IBM made me an offer, they specified both list price and discount. They have done it that way for years, no secrets about it. I don't understand what happened, and I sure as hell can't relate that to anything I've ever experienced. Not with TSM licenses. -- Met vriendelijke groeten, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: Alternatives to TSM
AS far as I know, there was no audit. The audit tool is about as worthless as it could be without being actually harmful. You'd think all the clients could return CPU type, count, and IDs and have a complete answer right there in the TSM server. Over the past couple years, we've greatly shrunk our number of physical servers, so we know it's fewer CPUs than we originally bought for. I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :)
Re: Alternatives to TSM
By any chance do you back up a lot of desktops? I've seen more than 1 case where the IBM rep actually pulled the wrong numbers for a quote when there were a bunch of desktops involved. (The licensing is confusing for everyone, not just customers...) Your IBM rep should be able to SHOW you the breakdown for the quote, i.e. how many value units they are charging you for TSM basic clients, Oracle clients, Mail clients, etc. It's a pain to do your own verification of the quote, but it protects you in cases like this to be able to compare this years charges vs. last years. There is a table on the web that shows the value units you need for each type of processor/core/machine. BTW, a little known fact: you can also go to a different business partner and get a 2nd opinion quote, if the 1st one doesn't cooperate. IBM may not like it, but you aren't obligated to play with who they tell you to. Overall IBM is better off keeping you as a customer. Also remember, if by chance you are moving anything to VMWARE, you only have to pay for the processors in the physical host, no matter how many clients you run. Same if you are running multiple AIX LPARs on 1 physical box. If you are running something like Oracle TDP on an LPAR in an 8-way box, and the Oracle LPAR is restricted to using only 2 processors, I believe you only have to license the 2, not the 8, for the Oracle TDP. The only way I can think of you should have gotten a 4X maintenance quote for TSM, is if you essentially got it free on some special deal in the first place, or you've upgraded a lot of your machines to higher-power boxes. Another option, go back to your IBM rep and TELL them this won't do and you're going to walk; see what alternatives they can come up with- maybe they could at least phase it in over a few years. I'm pointing this stuff out because a) I've seen it happen when it was just a MISTAKE, and b) both YOU and IBM are going to be better off keeping you as a customer. Unless you have a really tiny environment, even an increase in your maintenance (not 4X, but some increase) is going to most likely be cheaper for you than the initial cost of one of the other backup products (and none of the others are as good!) On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Conway, Timothy timothy.con...@jbssa.comwrote: AS far as I know, there was no audit. The audit tool is about as worthless as it could be without being actually harmful. You'd think all the clients could return CPU type, count, and IDs and have a complete answer right there in the TSM server. Over the past couple years, we've greatly shrunk our number of physical servers, so we know it's fewer CPUs than we originally bought for. I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :)
Re: Alternatives to TSM
All excellent points. I've lived 'em. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Wanda Prather Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 4:45 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM By any chance do you back up a lot of desktops? I've seen more than 1 case where the IBM rep actually pulled the wrong numbers for a quote when there were a bunch of desktops involved. (The licensing is confusing for everyone, not just customers...) Your IBM rep should be able to SHOW you the breakdown for the quote, i.e. how many value units they are charging you for TSM basic clients, Oracle clients, Mail clients, etc. It's a pain to do your own verification of the quote, but it protects you in cases like this to be able to compare this years charges vs. last years. There is a table on the web that shows the value units you need for each type of processor/core/machine. BTW, a little known fact: you can also go to a different business partner and get a 2nd opinion quote, if the 1st one doesn't cooperate. IBM may not like it, but you aren't obligated to play with who they tell you to. Overall IBM is better off keeping you as a customer. Also remember, if by chance you are moving anything to VMWARE, you only have to pay for the processors in the physical host, no matter how many clients you run. Same if you are running multiple AIX LPARs on 1 physical box. If you are running something like Oracle TDP on an LPAR in an 8-way box, and the Oracle LPAR is restricted to using only 2 processors, I believe you only have to license the 2, not the 8, for the Oracle TDP. The only way I can think of you should have gotten a 4X maintenance quote for TSM, is if you essentially got it free on some special deal in the first place, or you've upgraded a lot of your machines to higher-power boxes. Another option, go back to your IBM rep and TELL them this won't do and you're going to walk; see what alternatives they can come up with- maybe they could at least phase it in over a few years. I'm pointing this stuff out because a) I've seen it happen when it was just a MISTAKE, and b) both YOU and IBM are going to be better off keeping you as a customer. Unless you have a really tiny environment, even an increase in your maintenance (not 4X, but some increase) is going to most likely be cheaper for you than the initial cost of one of the other backup products (and none of the others are as good!) On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Conway, Timothy timothy.con...@jbssa.comwrote: AS far as I know, there was no audit. The audit tool is about as worthless as it could be without being actually harmful. You'd think all the clients could return CPU type, count, and IDs and have a complete answer right there in the TSM server. Over the past couple years, we've greatly shrunk our number of physical servers, so we know it's fewer CPUs than we originally bought for. I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :)
Re: Alternatives to TSM
I've wondered about that sort of thing. That's why I said I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. . There has to be more to this than what I was told. So far, if you essentially got it free on some special deal in the first place is the only scenario that makes any sense. Wow. I'm actually talking to Wanda Prather! -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Wanda Prather Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:45 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM By any chance do you back up a lot of desktops? I've seen more than 1 case where the IBM rep actually pulled the wrong numbers for a quote when there were a bunch of desktops involved. (The licensing is confusing for everyone, not just customers...) Your IBM rep should be able to SHOW you the breakdown for the quote, i.e. how many value units they are charging you for TSM basic clients, Oracle clients, Mail clients, etc. It's a pain to do your own verification of the quote, but it protects you in cases like this to be able to compare this years charges vs. last years. There is a table on the web that shows the value units you need for each type of processor/core/machine. BTW, a little known fact: you can also go to a different business partner and get a 2nd opinion quote, if the 1st one doesn't cooperate. IBM may not like it, but you aren't obligated to play with who they tell you to. Overall IBM is better off keeping you as a customer. Also remember, if by chance you are moving anything to VMWARE, you only have to pay for the processors in the physical host, no matter how many clients you run. Same if you are running multiple AIX LPARs on 1 physical box. If you are running something like Oracle TDP on an LPAR in an 8-way box, and the Oracle LPAR is restricted to using only 2 processors, I believe you only have to license the 2, not the 8, for the Oracle TDP. The only way I can think of you should have gotten a 4X maintenance quote for TSM, is if you essentially got it free on some special deal in the first place, or you've upgraded a lot of your machines to higher-power boxes. Another option, go back to your IBM rep and TELL them this won't do and you're going to walk; see what alternatives they can come up with- maybe they could at least phase it in over a few years. I'm pointing this stuff out because a) I've seen it happen when it was just a MISTAKE, and b) both YOU and IBM are going to be better off keeping you as a customer. Unless you have a really tiny environment, even an increase in your maintenance (not 4X, but some increase) is going to most likely be cheaper for you than the initial cost of one of the other backup products (and none of the others are as good!) On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Conway, Timothy timothy.con...@jbssa.comwrote: AS far as I know, there was no audit. The audit tool is about as worthless as it could be without being actually harmful. You'd think all the clients could return CPU type, count, and IDs and have a complete answer right there in the TSM server. Over the past couple years, we've greatly shrunk our number of physical servers, so we know it's fewer CPUs than we originally bought for. I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :)
Re: Alternatives to TSM
Another thought on changing vendors is this. If IBM really is cranking up the maintenance price in general, then the competitors will follow soon after, maybe not as much but close. Follow the herd mentality. David Longo Conway, Timothy timothy.con...@jbssa.com 2/24/2009 5:14 PM AS far as I know, there was no audit. The audit tool is about as worthless as it could be without being actually harmful. You'd think all the clients could return CPU type, count, and IDs and have a complete answer right there in the TSM server. Over the past couple years, we've greatly shrunk our number of physical servers, so we know it's fewer CPUs than we originally bought for. I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :) # This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain private, proprietary, or legally privileged information. No privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it, and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. Health First reserves the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views or opinions expressed in this message are solely those of the individual sender, except (1) where the message states such views or opinions are on behalf of a particular entity; and (2) the sender is authorized by the entity to give such views or opinions. #
Re: Alternatives to TSM
One other mistake that is easy to make, and the mistake is always to give higher processor count and price, is to not distinguish Hyper-threading on Windows boxes. Many tools can't tell the difference, and therefore you would end up paying for 8 processor cores on a 4 core server. David Longo Wanda Prather wanda.prat...@jasi.com 2/24/2009 5:45 PM By any chance do you back up a lot of desktops? I've seen more than 1 case where the IBM rep actually pulled the wrong numbers for a quote when there were a bunch of desktops involved. (The licensing is confusing for everyone, not just customers...) Your IBM rep should be able to SHOW you the breakdown for the quote, i.e. how many value units they are charging you for TSM basic clients, Oracle clients, Mail clients, etc. It's a pain to do your own verification of the quote, but it protects you in cases like this to be able to compare this years charges vs. last years. There is a table on the web that shows the value units you need for each type of processor/core/machine. BTW, a little known fact: you can also go to a different business partner and get a 2nd opinion quote, if the 1st one doesn't cooperate. IBM may not like it, but you aren't obligated to play with who they tell you to. Overall IBM is better off keeping you as a customer. Also remember, if by chance you are moving anything to VMWARE, you only have to pay for the processors in the physical host, no matter how many clients you run. Same if you are running multiple AIX LPARs on 1 physical box. If you are running something like Oracle TDP on an LPAR in an 8-way box, and the Oracle LPAR is restricted to using only 2 processors, I believe you only have to license the 2, not the 8, for the Oracle TDP. The only way I can think of you should have gotten a 4X maintenance quote for TSM, is if you essentially got it free on some special deal in the first place, or you've upgraded a lot of your machines to higher-power boxes. Another option, go back to your IBM rep and TELL them this won't do and you're going to walk; see what alternatives they can come up with- maybe they could at least phase it in over a few years. I'm pointing this stuff out because a) I've seen it happen when it was just a MISTAKE, and b) both YOU and IBM are going to be better off keeping you as a customer. Unless you have a really tiny environment, even an increase in your maintenance (not 4X, but some increase) is going to most likely be cheaper for you than the initial cost of one of the other backup products (and none of the others are as good!) On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Conway, Timothy timothy.con...@jbssa.comwrote: AS far as I know, there was no audit. The audit tool is about as worthless as it could be without being actually harmful. You'd think all the clients could return CPU type, count, and IDs and have a complete answer right there in the TSM server. Over the past couple years, we've greatly shrunk our number of physical servers, so we know it's fewer CPUs than we originally bought for. I wish I had more of a role in this than This is what we must have done. Make it happen. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Alternatives to TSM I thought the audit was so last year... Is it making a comeback? :) # This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain private, proprietary, or legally privileged information. No privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it, and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. Health First reserves the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views or opinions expressed in this message are solely those of the individual sender, except (1) where the message states such views or opinions are on behalf of a particular entity; and (2) the sender is authorized by the entity to give such views or opinions. #
