INTRODUCTION OF TSM

IBM-TSM:

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager is one of the core products of the IBM Tivoli Storage Management product set. It provides a solution for distributed data and storage management in an enterprise network environment. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager supports a wide variety of platforms for mobile, small and large systems, and, together with complementary products, delivers many data management functions, including data protection for file and application data, record retention, space management, and disaster recovery.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM or ITSM) is a centralized, policy-based, enterprise class, data backup and recovery package. The software enables the user to insert objects not only via backup, but also through space management and archive tools. It also allows retrieval of the same data via similar restore, recall, and retrieve methods.

The product was known as ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM) before its 1999 re-branding, and was originally known as Workstation Data Save Facility (WDSF).

Recent release 6.3 (Oct 2011). The 6.1 release of the TSM Server is supported on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, and Windows Server.

FEATURES OF IBM-TSM:

1. Backup and Recovery Management
2. Hierarchical Storage Management
3. Archive Management
4. Advanced Data Reduction

ADVANTAGE OF IBM-TSM:

1. Intelligent backups and restores utilizing a revolutionary progressive incremental backup and restore strategy, where only new and used files are backed up
2. Policy-based management of file backup and archiving
3. Managed archives
4. Combines progressive-incremental backup, source and target data deduplication, compression and tape management to provide best-in-class data reduction.

BENEFITS OF IBM-TSM:

1. Centralized protection based on smart-move and smart-store technology leading to faster backups and restores with less network and storage resources needed.
2. Ability to automate critical processes relating to the media on which data is stored while reducing storage media and administrative costs associated with managing data.
3. Ability to easily protect and manage documents that need to be kept for a certain period of time.
4. Reduces the costs of data storage, environmental requirements, and administration.

HISTORY:

TSM descended from the Workstation DataSave Facility (WDSF) project done at IBM‘s Almaden Research Center around 1990. WDSF’s original purpose was to back up PC/DOS, OS/2, and AIX workstation data onto a VM/CMS (and later MVS) server.

The TSM database (through release 5.5) is a bespoke B+ tree database with an architectural limit of approximately 530GB, and 13GB of log space. Although the TSM database uses many of the same underlying technologies asIBM‘s DB2, has an SQL engine (though for read-access only), and supports access through ODBC, it used this custom database through release 5.5. Starting with TSM 6.1, released in May, 2009, TSM uses a DB2 instance as its database. This removes the previous architectural limits.