> 4 - The security team brought an interesting question to my attention. Is
> the data that we send offsite, via copy pool, encrypted to where someone
> could not just take the tape and view the data. My thoughts are that the
> data is encrypted and cannot be recovered without the TSM database and in
> order to restore the TSM database to another server, I would think there is
> some sort of security there.
The data on copy pool tapes is not encrypted unless the TSM client did the
encryption. As far as I know, the TSM 4 Windows client is the only client with
encryption facilities. These are intended mainly for use with portable systems
to protect backup files as they travel over telecommunications lines. I don't
think there is any published documentation of the format of a storage pool.
This would be a significant impediment to extracting useful data from a tape,
but it is really not a substitute for encryption. If you use client
compression, data written to storage pool tapes would probably not contain
easily recognizable character strings. This would be an even larger impediment
to extracting useful data from a tape, but it is still not a substitute for
encryption. There are no security measures built into the database restore
process. I have done disaster recovery tests with both AIX and OS/390 servers.
I had to be able to log on to the replacement system and run the dsmserv
program. I did not have to pass any further security checks to restore the
database.
