I have come across this scenario before, and we too decided against generating subsets of tapes. It distorts the restore times compared to a 'real' disaster, and implies knowledge of the impending disaster.
We decided to go through the test relying on day to day procedure to maintain the data we needed. The first time through was, interestingly, a disaster.. but it helped us evaluate our setup and procedure, and by the third time through everything worked well, and we generated fairly consistent & reliable recovery times that could then be used with some confidence to predict how long recovery of various systems would take. Matt. -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Pendergast Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 5:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Disaster Recovery There are multiple options for this scenario. If the systems are small enough, and you have plenty of tapes, you can produce "backupset" tapes of each system. A backupset is a self contained tape that allows the client to restore without needing the TSM server. We use a backupset for one of our critical systems. The idea of a separate offsite pool with the critical systems on it works just fine. One thing that we had to set up was a move data script to keep all the data for the offsite tapes down to just a few tapes. One thing I must caution you on DR tests: Keep it real. We have one group that creates a "special" set of tapes just for their DR test. This makes their test very successful, but I am very afraid of an actual disaster. In the case of an actual disaster they will not have time to create "special" tapes, and thus they will be recovering under totally different circumstances. I am fearful that they will be unable to meet their SLA in an actual disaster. My group is using standard processes against the standard set of tapes that are sent offsite every day. James Choate <[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] NC.COM> cc: Sent by: "ADSM: Subject: Disaster Recovery Dist Stor Manager" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] .EDU> 08/30/2004 08:13 AM Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" Hi all, We are going to SunGard in November and we are interested in rebuilding our TSM server and 3 nodes that are in our environment. We do not want to take our entire OFFSITE tape pool with us to Sungard. Is there a way that we can easily create a seperate storage pool for just the 3 nodes we are interested in recovering + at the same time leave our current OFFSITE storage pool in place? Any ideas of what other folks are doing in this scenario would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, James Choate ___________________________ Disclaimer Notice __________________________ This message and any attachments are confidential and should only be read by those to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact us, delete the message from your computer and destroy any copies. Any distribution or copying without our prior permission is prohibited. Internet communications are not always secure and therefore Powergen Retail Limited does not accept legal responsibility for this message. The recipient is responsible for verifying its authenticity before acting on the contents. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Powergen Retail Limited. Registered addresses: Powergen Retail Limited, Westwood Way, Westwood Business Park, Coventry, CV4 8LG. Registered in England and Wales No: 3407430 Telephone +44 (0) 2476 42 4000 Fax +44 (0) 2476 42 5432