Topics: Backup & restore, Spectrum Protect

Tivoli Storage Manager introduction

Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) is a backup system. Not just any backup system, but probably the best there is. It exists for over a decade and is a product of IBM. It used to be known as ADSM (Adstar Distributed Storage Manager); later on it was renamed to TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) and nowadays it is known as ITSM (IBM Tivoli Storage Manager).

One of the most important benefits of TSM is the fact that it runs on many systems; it has a broad hardware support. TSM runs on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Sun Solaris, and Windows. Client software for even more operating systems exist (Such as Mac, Netware, OS400, Tru64UNIX), thus enabling the backup of other operating systems to TSM.

Another important aspect of TSM: the progressive incremental backup. Only files that are changed or are new to the system are backed up, therefore eliminating unnecessary data transfers, and gives you faster backup times. Progressive incremental backups needs to backup less data, thus saving network bandwith, tapes and management overhead. No more full backups are required.

TSM can be combined with several Tivoli Data Protection agents. These are add-ons to TSM, which enable you to create backups of several databases (e.g. Oracle or DB2), ERP applications (e.g. SAP/R3), mail (e.g. Exchange), and others. These TDP agents also enables online backups, so vital systems can stay online during backups.

Besides backup and restore, TSM also includes functions for archiving/retrieval and hierarchical storage management, to free up disk space normally used by files that aren't accessed for an extended period of time.

TSM can be administered centrally, either via the command-line or via a Web-based Enterprise Console. TSM is based on a (DB2) database, which needs zero management. All information of backups, backup versions and overhead is stored in the TSM database. TSM has its own powerfull scheduler, for either backup schedules or TSM maintenance schedules (so-called administrative schedules) which automate a lot of house-keeping jobs in TSM.

TSM stores its backup data in a variety of storage pools, which can consist of various sequential (tape) media or direct-access (disk) media. The storage pools are very flexible and data can be moved from one storage pool to another (migration). Building a hierarchy of storage pools is possible, thus enabling fast backups to disk storage pools and later on, migration from disk to tape storage pools. Data storage is based on policies, defined by the administrator in TSM. These policies include information on how many backup versions to store, and how long to retain the backups.

Note: From TSM 5.3 the Web Admin GUI is no longer supported. Because of popular demand, IBM has made the TSM 5.2 Web Admin GUI available for TSM 5.3.



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