I have about 500 nodes on my p5's running 5.4 and they are on the edge. The P7's running 6.2 have less than 250 nodes and are overpowered.
Testing indicates that the upgrade of the p5's to p6's and 6.2 will leave room to grow. All 6.2 servers are 32GB. The p7's are 2 CPU and the p6's are 4 CPU. All are allowed to steal CPU (LPARs are great). The disks are SAN attached, I am using real and imagined tape and disk pools. I do not dedup with TSM. Things to consider: 1. if you can complete your backups in the window you have enough network bandwidth 2. if you can complete expiration in a reasonable time you have enough CPU 3. if you can complete reclamation in a reasonable time you have enough storage bandwidth The hard part is all three can be affected by slow disk, not enough RAM and a busy CPU. Profile the current server and see where it is no longer performing to expectations and make sure that the weak points are addressed with the new hardware. If an upgrade from 5 to 6 is also happening make sure the new system addresses the change in DB. In my case the p5's are losing the expiration battle, the test runs with 6.2 on the p6 show great improvement in run time (faster CPU and some 6.2 improvements). I also found my network was staying busy longer during the backup window, so I doubled the bandwidth. In 2 weeks theory becomes reality. I am sure your situation is different, but I hope this helps. Others may have additions or other ideas. Andy Huebner -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of Ballenger, Craig Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 3:08 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Tivoli Server Specs Please see below... -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Huebner,Andy,FORT WORTH,IT Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 10:38 AM To: ADSM-L@vm.marist.edu Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Tivoli Server Specs A few details would help. 1. How many nodes - 380 2. How much data (total & daily) - not sure, but the DB is 256 GB on the largest TSM instance. 3. Deduplication - No dedup. I have a pair of P7s with 32GB RAM that are running great. I have 4 P5s that are a bit overloaded that will be upgraded to P6 with 32GB RAM. No dedup and about 4,000 nodes total. Andy Huebner -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of Ballenger, Craig Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 9:15 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] Tivoli Server Specs All, I am attempting to spec out a server(s) for TSM 6 and were wondering what hardware you folks are running it on. We were looking at the Power Series from IBM (POWER6/POWER7). Any info will help. Thanks, Craig Ballenger This e-mail (including any attachments) is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not an intended recipient or an authorized representative of an intended recipient, you are prohibited from using, copying or distributing the information in this e-mail or its attachments. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies of this message and any attachments. Thank you. This e-mail (including any attachments) is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not an intended recipient or an authorized representative of an intended recipient, you are prohibited from using, copying or distributing the information in this e-mail or its attachments. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies of this message and any attachments. Thank you.