IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Introduction (Day1)

As its your first day in our TSM School, please choose your seat and tighten your belt and be ready.
Today we will introduce you to IBM Tivoli Storage Manager & its primary functions.
TSM is the primary backup & data management solution used into the enterprise today. TSM has a
tough competition in the SMB mainly due to its cost, as its an enterprise solution. In the other hand,
its a clear winner when it come to the enterprise for many reasons just summarizing few of them
below:
1- TSM Can easily scale up to thousands of nodes without any problem. It has been designed with
enterprise scalability in mind. Most other backup solutions fail to scale up after couple of hundreds of
nodes, but with TSM scalability is a major advantage.
2- IBM Tivoli Storage manager support heterogeneous environment. It support so many platforms
including (Mainframe (zOS & Linux), AIX, Linux, HP UX, Windows,.etc). It support way more
operating systems & applications than any other backup solution in the market today.
3- TSM have many intelligent date movement and store techniques, that make building a hierarchical
backup & a pyramid of muli-level storage a feasible task. Something which can be very difficult to
achieve with other solutions.
4- Its an off-site backup ready, which can be used to build up a disaster recovery plan.
Plenty of other reasons are there, check out with your IBM Partner or IBM website to find out if TSM is
the right solution for you. For now lets start diving into the product.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Components

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Components is the first section of three section of the IBM Tivoli
Storage Manager Introduction (Day1). In this section we will cover up IBM Tivoli Storage
Manager Components.
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager have 9 Components. Six of these components reside on the TSM Server it
self & another 3 are a part of the solution, but does not reside on the TSM Server. The first Six
components in the list below are the TSM Components which reside on the TSM Server, where the last
3 components which has been colored in red are components which does not reside on the TSM
Server.

TSM Components:
1.

Administrative Interface

2.

Tivoli Storage Manager Server

3.

Scheduler

4.

Tivoli Storage Manager Database

5.

Tivoli Storage Manager Recovery Log

6.

Policy-Based Management

7.

Storage Pools

8.

Tape Library

9.

Backup-Archive Client (BA Client)

Now you at least know the name of the TSM Server components, you start to wonder what each of
these components mean. Thats exactly what we will discover next. Below I will give a brief
explanation of each of these components.
1- Administrative Interface:
Unlike many other backup software, TSM offers multiple management interfaces. Below is a brief of
each
Administration Center GUI: It is the main GUI interface of TSM. It integrate into the
Integrated Solutions Consonle. From it you can do most of the TSM tasks including Managing
storage devices, Domain Policies, Schedules, users, and health monitor, and many more tasks.
Its your full management through the GUI. If you are a GUI lover then this is the interface for
you.
TSM Server Command Line: Its the command line interface equivelant of the administration
center. Its the most powerfull TSM interface & a great interface for command line lovers. This
interface is accessed by running dsmcadmc at the command line.
Backup-Archive Client GUI: it is the GUI interface used to run a manual backup or restore on a
certain client, or to create a customized options for a certain client. Backup-Archive Client is
installed and run on the client server not the TSM Server. It can be accessed by running dsm
on Windows or by running dmsj on Unix.
Web Client GUI: Well this is nothing more than a web interface access to the Backup-Archive
Client GUI. It actually look exactly the same as the Backup-Archive Client GUI, beside of being
running in a web browser.
BA Client Command Line: If you dont like the GUI & prefer command line then this is the
interface to perform all the tasks managed by the Backup-Archive Client GUI, though using
command line. This can be accessed by running dsmc at the windows command line.

OK, these were the main management interfaces in TSM. Though I find it the norm for new commers
who just started with TSM to confuse the interfaces command due to their similarity. So as my gift to
my readers I will try to clear it early.
dsmadmc: is to call the TSM Server Command line. You will need this interface when you are planning
to perform administration tasks on the TSM Server.
dsmc: to call the BA Client Command Line to perform tasks on the client server (the servers you
want to backup).
dsm: to call the BA Client GUI. Again to perform tasks on the client server (the server you want to
backup).
So dsm & dsmc is interfaces which manage tasks on the client (the server you want to backup) where
dsmadmc is to manage tasks on the TSM Server. Please make sure to get this straighten up before
proceeding as this will make your life a lot easier while switching between these interfaces in future
chapters
2- Tivoli Storage Manager Server:
TSM Server main functionality is to move the backup & archive data from the BA Client to the storage
media (Storage or Tape Library). TSM Server keep all of the users, administrators, policy management
objects, & client nodes data into a special database. An important thing to note a common mistake
that people reffer to the physical system running TSM Server as the TSM Server, but that is not
correct. As TSM Server is actually only an instance of the TSM Server software running on that
system. As you can run multiple instance of TSM Server on the same system.
3- Scheduler:
Tivoli Storage Manager offers an advanced scheduling capabilities for most of its tasks. This has been
made possible by the scheduler part integrated into both the TSM Server & BA Client.
4- Tivoli Storage Manager Database:
TSM Keep up information of every file, raw logical volume, or database that it backup, archive, or
migrate. The database of TSM is required for it to operate. A loss of database usually mean a full loss
of backed up & archived data. So you better take a good care of your TSM Database, as its the the
heart of your Tivoli Storage Manager.
5- Tivoli Storage Manager Recovery Log:
Just like any other database in the market today, TSM Database keeps track of each new transaction
in its recovery logs. In case of suddent outage of the TSM server, recovery logs is the first resort to
revert back changes & get the database back to an operational stage.
6- Policy-Based Management:
BA Clients is managed by the TSM Server by a centralized policies stored in the TSM Server Database.
These policies all the administrator to meet business requirements by defining which files to backup &
archive. The expiry of the files & how many copies to keep.
7- Storage Pools:

Storage Pools are collections of like media that provide storage for backup. TSM allow you to build a
hierarchy of storage pools to where you send your backup, archive, and migrate data. You can
automate the movement of data between different level of the storage pools hirarchy or establish a
copy of them.
8- Tape Library:
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager support many tape libraries, which is usually the final destination of
the backup. For a full list of the supported tape libraries check out TSM Supported Tape Libraries
9- Backup-Archive Client (BA Client):
The TSM Backup-Archive Clinet (BA Client) is a service that send & retrive data from the TSM Server.
BA Client must be installed on every server to be backed up or archived by TSM.

IBM TSM Functionality & Capabilities

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager is a backup & archive solution, so if you are familiar with backup solutions you will discover
that TSM will have to be capable of performing four main functions: backup, restore, archive, and retrive. Although these
concepts seem easy to most, many new admins have a hard time distinguishing between backup & archive. As I am trying
to cover every one, below you will find a brief of each as being defined by IBM Tivoli Team.
Backup: Creates a copy of a file to protect against the operational loss of destruction of that file. Customers control
backups by defining the backup frequency and number of versions.
Restore: Placesbackup copies of files into a customer-designed system or workstation after the loss of a file. by default,
the most recent version of each active file requested is replaced.
Archive: Create a copy of a file or set of files for vital record retention of data, such as patent information, financial
information, or customer records. Customers control archive by defining the retention period. 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 workstation. The Archive copy in the storage
pool is not affected.
Basically the main difference between archive and backup, is backup meant for the situation where you loose the data and
you need to recover. In the other hand, you require the archive to meet certain auditing requirement of keeping certain
data for a certain period of time.
I hope that clear up the differences between backup & archive for all.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager 5.5 Licensing

IBM TSM 5.5 come with three license schema as below:
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager 5.5 Basic Version requires tsmbasic.lic license file

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager 5.5 Extended Edition requires tsmee.lic license file
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager 5.5 Retention Edition requires dataret.lic licesne file.
Note: License cant be mixed at the site level.