Friday, October 7, 2011

Tivoli Storage Manager Overview

TSM Version: 5.3.2

IBM Tivoli storage manager stores copies of data offline.

It protects hundreds of computers running a variety of OS

Components:

· Administrative interface

· TSM Server

· Scheduler

· Backup-Archive Client

· TSM Database

· TSM Recovery log

· Storage Pools

· Policy-Based Management

· Tape Library

Administrative interface: TSM Administration center, which operates on the Integrated Solutions Console (ISC), provides a task oriented GUI for storage administrators. Tasks such as creating server maintenance scripts, scheduling, adding storage devices, setting policy domains, user management, viewing the health monitor.

TSM Server: The role of TSM server is to store the backup or archive data from the backup-archive clients that it supports , to storage media. It also has a database of information to keep track of the data it manages, including policy management objects

Scheduler: Administrator defined schedules allow for the automation of Tivoli storage manager server and backup-archive client operations.

Backup-Archive Client: The TSM backup-archive client is a service which sends data to, and retrieves data from TSM server. The TSM backup-archive client must be installed on every machine that needs to transfer data to server managed storage called storage pools.

TSM Database: TSM Saves information in the TSM database about each file, raw LV, database that it backs up, archives. This information includes the File name, size, management class. Data is stored in a storage pool.

TSM Recovery Log: The recovery log keeps track of all changes made to the database, If a system outage were to occur, a record of the changes would be available for recovery.

Storage Pools: Storage pools are collections of like media that provide storage for backed up, archived and migrated files.

Policy-Based Management: Business policy is used to centrally manage backup-archive client data. Policies are created by the administrator and stored in the database on the server.

Tape Library: TSM supports a variety of library types, including manual libraries, SCSI libraries, 349X and 358X libraries.

Backup-Restore functionality:

TSM can perform backups of both files and raw lv’s. When backing up files TSM server database keeps a list of all files and their attributes (time, date, size, access control lists)

Backup: Creates a copy of file to protect against the operational loss or destruction of that file. Customers control backups by defining the backup frequency and number of versions.

Restore: Places backup copies of files into a customer designated system. By default the most recent version of each archive file requested is replaced.

4 levels of backups:

· Byte level ( Small amounts of data)

· Block Level (bigger amount of data)

· File level ( normal files)

· Image level ( includes file system and files)

TSM uses Progressive Backup Methodology also known as Incremental Backups.

Long term storage capabilities through Archive-Retrieve Function:

Archiving is useful when you want to store data that is infrequently accessed but must still be kept available. TSM has the capability of archiving for 30 years.

· Archive: Creates a copy of file or set of files. This feature enables customers to keep unlimited archive copies of a file.

· Retrieve: Allows users to copy an archive file from the storage pool to the work station.

Administration center on the integrated solutions console: GUI for managing IBM TSM administrative function is called the Administration Center.

Automation Capabilities: It includes a central scheduling component that allows the automatic processing of administrative commands and backup-archive client operations during a specific time period when the schedule is activated.

Scheduling is split into 2 categories:

· Administrative scheduling

· Backup-archive client scheduling.

Data storage and Data Management:

Types of storage media on which TSM stores data: Storage media can be disks, optical and tape assigned to a storage pool.

Storage pools contain backup files, archived files and space managed files. These storage pools are chained in order to create a storage hierarchy. The disk pool is usually first in the chain and followed by tape.

Policy –Based Approach: Backup-archive client data managed by business policy. Policies created by the administrator and stored in the database on the server.

Policy Domain: A group of nodes managed by the same set of policy constraints as defined by the policy sets. A node may only to be defined to one policy domain per server.

Policy Set: A collection of management class definitions. A policy domain may contain number of policy sets.

Management Class: A collection of management attributes called copy groups. 2 sets of MC attributes: backup and archive

Copy group: Management attributes describing backup and archive characteristics. There is a backup copy group and an archive copy group.

TSM Licensing:

3 License types: tsmbasic.lic, tsmee.lic and dataret.lic