New Options for Tivoli Storage Manager
by Orville Lantto
Systems Analyst
Datatrend Technologies
This month’s Tech Tip will highlight several new options in Tivoli Storage Manager for AIX version 5.1 and 5.2. We also provide revised versions of the TSM options spreadsheets first presented for TSM 4.2 in an earlier Tech Tip.
New Version 5 Options
Below is a table with the new options available for the TSM Server options file. These are options for the IBM AIX version of TSM Server. Some of these options were introduced at the 5.1 level and others were introduced at the 5.2 level. The new options address three areas: disk I/O performance, TSM admin functions, and Tivoli event console functionality.
The disk I/O functions were introduced at version 5.1. The Async I/O takes advantage of the ability of IBM AIX to decouple the physical disk I/O writes from the report to the application that the I/O write has completed. This allows AIX to more efficiently manage the disk write stream.
The Direct I/O option instructs TSM to bypass AIX disk caching and directly write to JFS files used as database/log/data volumes. This takes a load off of AIX and allows TSM to read/write JFS volumes with similar efficiency as raw volume I/O.
Several new administrative functionalities have been introduced:
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An Event Server can be defined to accept event information from remote servers.
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The infamous TSM server HALT command can be redefined to something less dangerous.
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Additional information can be displayed during traces
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A different TCP/IP port can be defined for administrative client connections
And lastly, the TEC console functionality has been tweaked to allow UTF8 messaging and to allow unique TEC classes for every TSM client and server message, as well as for Tivoli Data Protection clients.
Updates to TSM Options Spreadsheets
Below are links to updated versions of TSM server and client options spreadsheets. These spreadsheets list all available documented options, a brief explanation of what it is, the default value, and a recommended value (if different from the default). The recommendations lean towards performance.
Considering running TSM on Linux?
Tivoli Storage Manager server can be run on Intel 32 bit Linux (sorry, no AMD at this time), pSeries Linux , and on Z/OS Linux. As of April 5, 2004, the support levels for TSM 5.2 on Intel Linux were:
To contact Orville Lantto for more information on this tip, or to suggest or submit a Tech Tip for future TrendSetter issues, please email TechTips@datatrend.com.
Datatrend's TrendSetter eNewsletter
April 15, 2004
