Remote Site Backup

Ok here is the scenario, we have a 2.8TB Windows file server at a remote location and we have to back it up over the WAN.  We can't put a TSM server locally due to many issues (one is that it's not worth wasting resources on 2-3 servers). Due to throughput the backup was calculated to possibly take 25+ days to complete. So the idea I came up with was to copy the data onto a 4TB USB  drive and then ship the drive to our Data Center and attach it to another Windows server as the same drive name/label and the drive has at the remote site, setup a dsm.opt with the node name of the remote server and run the backup. The hope is that then when we run the backup remotely it will see all it's data as already backed up and then pickup with incremental backups. Will it work? Anyone tried it? I'm worried there are too many file variables involved and it will still try and backup the files all over again.

RHEL 6.6, non IBM devices and UDEV rules

RHEL 6.6, non IBM devices and UDEV rules

Few days back we had to move one of our TSM servers and its library - which is a shared one. Did it before with TSM version 5.x and everything was fine that day. Now we are on the 7.1 and I have found that even the SANDISCOVERY found the new path correctly (and updated it on the Library Manager), drives were not working.
TSM 6.x+ server does not run under "root" account anymore, but when the new device is discovered, its device file is created as RW for root only.
Normaly (when you manually add the new device) you update the device files privileges and create the links using "/opt/tivoli/tsm/devices/bin/autoconf -a", but this does not work automatically.

On the TSM Symposium 2013 in Berlin there was a great presentation "Tape configuration for TSM" by Bruno Friess which (among other things) solves this situation by using persistent names via "udev".
http://www.exstor.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tape_config_for_tsm.pdf
 
It only has a 2 minor limitations
a) Linux variant mentioned is SLES
b) lacks details for Linux, udev and non-IBM devices

As our Linux servers run on RHEL amd our libraries are Overland brand with HP tape drives, I had to modify the steps a bit:
a) udevadm info .... does not display serial numbers for HP tape drives and Overland libraries - you need sg3_utils package for having "sginfo" command to get the device serial numbers
b) links are created as /dev/library1 and /dev/drive1 (2, 3) pointing to corresponding /dev/sgX device with crw-rw-rw permissions
c) file below was created as /etc/udev/rules.d/71-persistent-tape.rules

# This file shoud create persistent devices for HP tapes and libraries used by TSM

# Known serial numbers
# <library1>    LIBRSN1234
# <drive1>      DRV1SN3456
# <drive2>      DRV2SN4567
# <drive3>      DRV3SN5678

KERNEL=="sg*", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_generic", SYSFS{type}=="8", PROGRAM="/usr/bin/sginfo -s /dev/%k", RESULT=="*LIBRSN1234*", SYMLINK+="library1",MODE="0666"
KERNEL=="sg*", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_generic", PROGRAM="/usr/bin/sginfo -s /dev/%k", RESULT=="*DRV1SN3456*", SYMLINK+="drive1",MODE="0666"
KERNEL=="sg*", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_generic", PROGRAM="/usr/bin/sginfo -s /dev/%k", RESULT=="*DRV2SN4567*", SYMLINK+="drive2",MODE="0666"
KERNEL=="sg*", SUBSYSTEM=="scsi_generic", PROGRAM="/usr/bin/sginfo -s /dev/%k", RESULT=="*DRV3SN5678*", SYMLINK+="drive3",MODE="0666"

Many thanks to Bruno and hope this helps someone.

Best Desktop Linux Distro

Ok not a TSM subject, but I am running Linux (Kubuntu 15.04) on an old Sony laptop and while I like it, something is missing. I want a launcher bar but didn't like Unity. Anyone out there suggest a distro that they like? I've used Mint with Cinnamon and Mate but thought I'd try KDE again after the new release.  I don't particularly like GNOME but....

TSM 7.1 Discussion

I was asked by a former colleague to start a discussion on the merits of TSM 7.1. I use TSM 7.1 currently on my newer TSM servers and don't see a huge difference from our 6.4 servers. I know there are some features and updates with 7.1 but none that impact me other than any possible performance enhancements.

So tell me why you upgraded to TSM 7.1 or what features made it a "No Brainer" for you to implement 7.1. I'd like to hear from you.

Q MOUNT Research

So in yesterday's post I spoke of a "better Q MOUNT" using a script I wrote. The problem is the Q MOUNT command does not reference a accessible TSM table. It appears to gathers the information on the mount with the associated process or session from various tables (as seen with Q MOUNT F=D). So I became more intrigued with how TSM gathers the info and decided to bypass TSM all together and research on the DB2 side. Well out of 779 tables in the TSM 7.1 DB2 database I did not see any with MOUNT in the name (you can find a list of all the TSM DB 7.1 tables here). There definietle some tables that appear in the list that are hidden from TSM or unused, but I queried a number of tables looking for any that had fields (columns) that correlated to the Q MOUNT command. The closest I came was the MMS_DRIVE table which has the following fields.

$ db2 "select char(COLNAME,24) as COLNAME,char(TYPENAME,24)as DATATYPE,LENGTH,SCALE from syscat.columns where tabname='MMS_DRIVES' and tabschema='TSMDB1'"

COLNAME                  DATATYPE                 LENGTH      SCALE
------------------------ ------------------------ ----------- ------
ACSDRVID                 VARCHAR                          126      0
CLEANFREQ                INTEGER                            4      0
DEVICE                   VARCHAR                           65      0
DEVTYPE                  INTEGER                            4      0
DEV_INQ                  SMALLINT                           2      0
DRIVENAME                VARCHAR                           31      0
ELEMENT                  INTEGER                            4      0
INQUIRY                  VARCHAR                         1025      0
KBYTES_PROC              BIGINT                             8      0
KBYTES_PROC_HI           INTEGER                            4      0
LIBNAME                  VARCHAR                           31      0
ONLINE                   INTEGER                            4      0
OWNER                    VARCHAR                           65      0
OWNERVOL                 VARCHAR                         1025      0
RD_FORMAT                BIGINT                             8      0
SERIAL                   VARCHAR                           65      0
UPDATE_DATE              TIMESTAMP                         10      6
UPDATOR                  VARCHAR                           65      0
WR_FORMAT                BIGINT                             8      0
WWN                      VARCHAR                           17      0

There should be a table that would show the drive, what tape is mounted, what process or session it's assigned and who owns it, just like a Q MOUNT F=D. I haven't found it yet.

NOTE: Of the 779 tables I listed a more refined search shows 154 tables that correspond to what we seem to be able to access from the TSM admin command line.

A Better Q MOUNT?

I was playing around with my QDRV script which I feel gives a better showing than Q DRIVE and realized that I could technically produce a better Q MOUNT display than the built in TSM command provides. FYI - Unlike the Q MOUNT command my QMNT script shows the device definition for the current DRIVE_OWNER, so a storage agent or library client.  I have provided both my scripts for you, let me know what you think. Suggestions are welcome.

QDRV Script

select cast((library_name)as char(15)) as LIBRARY_NAME, -
cast((DRIVE_NAME)as char(16)) as DRIVE_NAME, -
cast((drive_state)as char(10)) as DRIVE_STATE, -
cast((volume_name)as char(8)) as VOL_NAME, cast((online)as char(10)) as ONLINE, -
cast((ALLOCATED_TO)as char(20)) as DRV_OWNER from drives order by library_name, drive_name






QDRV Macro

DEFINE SCRIPT  QDRV DESC="Show tape drive status"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QDRV "select cast((library_name)as char(15)) as LIBRARY_NAME, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QDRV "cast((DRIVE_NAME)as char(16)) as DRIVE_NAME, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QDRV "cast((drive_state)as char(10)) as DRIVE_STATE, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QDRV "cast((volume_name)as char(8)) as VOL_NAME, cast((online)as char(10)) as ONLINE, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QDRV "cast((ALLOCATED_TO)as char(20)) as DRV_OWNER from drives order by library_name, drive_name"




QMNT Script

select varchar(a.library_name,15) as LIB_NAME, -
cast((a.DRIVE_NAME)as char(16)) as DRIVE_NAME, -
cast((a.drive_state)as char(10)) as DRIVE_STATE, -
cast((a.volume_name)as char(8)) as VOL_NAME, -
varchar(b.device,12) as device, cast((a.online)as char(10)) as ONLINE, -
cast((a.ALLOCATED_TO)as char(20)) as DRV_OWNER from drives a, paths b -
where a.library_name=b.library_name and a.drive_name=b.destination_name -
and b.source_name=a.ALLOCATED_TO order by a.drive_name


QMNT Macro

DEFINE SCRIPT  QMNT DESC="Show tape mount status"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "select varchar(a.library_name,15) as LIB_NAME, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "cast((a.DRIVE_NAME)as char(16)) as DRIVE_NAME, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "cast((a.drive_state)as char(10)) as DRIVE_STATE, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "cast((a.volume_name)as char(8)) as VOL_NAME, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "varchar(b.device,12) as device, cast((a.online)as char(10)) as ONLINE, -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "cast((a.ALLOCATED_TO)as char(20)) as DRV_OWNER from drives a, paths b -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "where a.library_name=b.library_name and a.drive_name=b.destination_name -"
UPDATE SCRIPT  QMNT "and b.source_name=a.ALLOCATED_TO order by a.drive_name"