Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
If memory serves me, this is the way ADSM licensing was back in the 1.2 days. Except back then I believe the server would eventually cut you off if you ran out of license, and you couldn't just register another license without paying for it. IMHO, the danger with capacity-based (or data-based) licensing is that we get more data every year and the cost of storage goes down every year. The expectation should be that the capacity-based license fees should go down every year to compensate for the growth. But if the vendor choose to not lower the license fee rates, then they automatically get a bump in revenue by default, without having done anything. I'll agree with others who have said that any licensing scheme should be relatively easy to figure out, and the current scheme is not. If TSM provided the information (e.g., via Q LIC), then I think most folks would be a lot happier about the new scheme. ..Paul At 06:19 AM 8/2/2007, Richard Rhodes wrote: This is interesting. The other day I was talking to my manager about TSM licensing and mentioned the big thread about licensing confusion. He mentioned that he would LIKE it if TSM used a simple capacity-based license. His reasoning was that it would directly tie the cost of TSM back to what we use it for, and let him more easily force issues around long/big retensions we have. Rick -- Paul ZarnowskiPh: 607-255-4757 Manager, Storage Services Fx: 607-255-8521 719 Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-3801Em: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Oh, Rick, such a dreamer! Let's not confuse a rational pricing model for a backup product with the TSM licensing scheme. Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Rhodes Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 4:20 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison > Your comments on NetWorker's licensing couldn't be more spot-on. > FWIW, MOST backup products are similar; TSM is one of the very few > with licensing as simple as it is. One other, although completely > different, product with a simple licensing model is Asigra, where it's > pure capacity-based - no agent/client licensing, no CPU count, just GB > protected. This is interesting. The other day I was talking to my manager about TSM licensing and mentioned the big thread about licensing confusion. He mentioned that he would LIKE it if TSM used a simple capacity-based license. His reasoning was that it would directly tie the cost of TSM back to what we use it for, and let him more easily force issues around long/big retensions we have. Rick
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
> Your comments on NetWorker's licensing couldn't be more spot-on. FWIW, > MOST backup products are similar; TSM is one of the very few with > licensing as simple as it is. One other, although completely different, > product with a simple licensing model is Asigra, where it's pure > capacity-based - no agent/client licensing, no CPU count, just GB > protected. This is interesting. The other day I was talking to my manager about TSM licensing and mentioned the big thread about licensing confusion. He mentioned that he would LIKE it if TSM used a simple capacity-based license. His reasoning was that it would directly tie the cost of TSM back to what we use it for, and let him more easily force issues around long/big retensions we have. Rick
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
>And this is my recommendation - CAREFULLY analyze >your needs as you look at other backup programs. Make sure you >can map your needs to the products features!!! Rick, I couldn't agree more. No backup product meets everybody's needs, so figure out what you need -- THEN see who best fits that. Those needs should also be based on business requirements, from which you derive your technical requirements. For example, your business requirement was RTO/RPO of x at those remotes sites (I don't know what it was, but I'll assume you had one.) In order to do that with NetWorker (at that time), you would have had to install and manage tape at the remote sites. OR you could do progressive incrementals with TSM without installing remote tape. Both solutions would work, but the TSM solution would cost less in your environment because you didn't need to buy all those remote tape drives and contract with an offsite media management company to manage those tapes at all those remote sites. It was also less risky because tapes aren't moving around in many different locations. (As you said, NetWorker now has synthetic full backups, so someone evaluating those same requirements today would need to consider other factors.) If all the products that you're looking at meet your basic requirements, as was the case in your environment, then you look at cost. (And ALWAYS include cost of operation, not just hardware & software. It's in operations where the true costs are.) If all products that meet your base requirements are the same cost, THEN you look at whiz-bang features. I'm not saying whiz bang features aren't important; I get excited about them as much as anybody. But they are secondary to your business and technical requirements. If someone is forced from management to re-examine their backup product because another vendor is offering a cheap apple, they should start this same process over again. 1. What are the business requirements? 2. What are the technical requirements based on those business requirements? 3. Does this new product meet those requirements? 4. How much more management will this product require, and how does that impact our cost? (IMHO, the only way to answer that question is to talk to independents that have used both products, such as yourself, or an independent PS company. Most vendors mis-represent their products in this area.) 5. How much will the migration cost and how long will it take? (Again, don't believe what the vendor says here. It ALWAYS takes longer.) 6. Based on all that, when do we actually begin to save money? If the answer to 6 is three years out, then I'd say it's a wash, as you're likely going to reconsider your backup product in three years anyway. This is a great discussion!
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" wrote on 07/30/2007 03:00:02 PM: > > Here's some perspective from someone who's currently transitioning from > Networker to TSM. Dave, thanks for the very informative email. Many years ago we ran Legato Networker. I've stayed out of this discussion because my knowledge of Networker is VERY old. I believe we were running the last v5 release - v6 had just been released and we didn't install it. This was way before EMC purchased Legato. I tell our EMC reps (we use EMC disk systems) that I have fond memories of running Networker. I actually liked it in many ways. Why did we get rid if it? That's complicated . . . . 1) Bad support. At that time, before EMC purchased it, Legato support was bad. I have never before or since experience such bad support. You know things are bad when the head of the company writes a letter to all customers apologizing for the bad support!!! 2) Licensing costs. We originally just backed up IBM AIX systems. We were about to start consolidating multiple different backup system for Windows, Netware and some odd ball systems. If we used networker, our costs were going to explode for all the nickel-and-dime licensing issues you mentioned. . . . but . . . None of those were going to make up for the cost of converting. What REALLY hurt us was client scheduling, client management, and remote backups. Our Networker system had grown to around 100 clients. I was the only person managing it. Since Networker only wrote straight to tape (the initial piece of disk staging had just been added, but was unusable), I was spending an awful lot of time juggling schedules. Oh how I hated that - Fulls, differentials, incrementals. Some on weekly fulls, others on monthly fulls, a few on multi-month fulls. Many servers had multiple node setups to allow different schedules for different filesystems with different retentions. Trying to balance all this in pools for timely expiration. (I remember the problems of mixed expiration perionds on the same tape very well!) Trying to balance the schedules so as to keep enough load to keep the tape drives spinning at full speed (multiplex backups). At about 100 clients I was buried in managing what amounted to a small Networker setup. We had decided to do centralized backups for remote sites across our wan. We were not going to put tape drives and libraries out at remote sites. So, given that Networker had to do full backups on some schedule, as the remote servers grew the backup traffic started to kill the wan, and, killed the tape drives with slow throughput. (I believe Networker now has synthetic full support.) We had to do something different. We did a study!!! FOR OUR NEEDS, TSM quickly climbed to the top of the list. Incremental forever with disk staging made scheduling a breeze and remote backups doable. There is much I don't like about TSM, but to this point it fits our needs very well. And this is my recommendation - CAREFULLY analyze your needs as you look at other backup programs. Make sure you can map your needs to the products features!!! Again, this all about a very old release of Network. Please don't apply these comments to the current release!! I'm just trying to tell the story of why we changed in the hope that it might be of some little benefit. Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Dave, Your response to John's question is well-worded and full of incredibly valuable information from a valuable point of view: someone who has used actually both products. Your comments on NetWorker's licensing couldn't be more spot-on. FWIW, MOST backup products are similar; TSM is one of the very few with licensing as simple as it is. One other, although completely different, product with a simple licensing model is Asigra, where it's pure capacity-based - no agent/client licensing, no CPU count, just GB protected. I wanted to make one minor point about something in your post. You said you'd been using NetWorker since it was Budtool. Legato NetWorker and PDC BudTool were actually completely separate products from two different companies that existed at the same time in the space-time continuum. Legato acquired PDC and its customers, and then proceeded to migrate them ASAP to NetWorker; it sounds like you were one of those migrated customers. That may have given you the impression that BudTool became NetWorker, but that wasn't the case. Legato acquired it and dumped it. (Why they acquired then dumped an entire product line is a conversation for another day.) I only make this point because some people may have negative (or positive) opinions about BudTool, and I wouldn't want them to think they were getting anything related to BudTool if they buy NetWorker. Again, very thoughtful, well-worded message. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mussulman Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 12:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Hi John, Here's some perspective from someone who's currently transitioning from Networker to TSM. My first blush is I'm a little surprised EMC came in at such a dramatic discount: Saving umpteen thousands of dollars is the main reason we switched from them to IBM. (Although I think the state IBM contracts give us an advantage.) It's probably important to understand how Networker is licensed. The quote may not map to your environment, and might explain some of the cost. EMC nickel and dimes you to death. You need individual client count licenses for each system. You need a blanket license for each different operating system (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc.) You need the server license. You need a license per jukebox (varying costs depending on size.) You need a license for disk storage (varying costs depending on size.) NDMP? VSS? Clusters? Those are individual licenses too (per system, not blanket for all systems.) Also, investigate their maintenance costs... Ours were on the order of 10x what IBM offered. This list might complain about the idiocay of CPU licensing (which I agree with, especially for a storage-centric product,) but it's night-and-day better than the ala carte menu Networker requires. It also means that when that next new gotta-have-it feature comes out, it too is probably not included in your software maintenance and will need a new license. We'd been using Networker since it was BudTool, but to add the software licensing for the advanced disk objects (B2D) and MacOS support (another thing we were adding,) on top of our yearly support, was enough to justify investigating other products and deciding to purchase TSM. So, if your costs are too good to be true, they might just be. Also, as you surmised, the transition is hard. Getting up to speed on new backup software, learning its quirks, documenting it for administration and user-level docs, different reporting needs, etc.. Dealing with the hardware juggling to support an old production server and a new server that moves from evaluation to semi-production to production is a challenge. I'm a year into it, and I don't foresee shutting down our Networker server in 2007; probably not entirely until next summer. (Of course, this is a problem that throwing money into can solve, but you're in this situation because you wanted to save money, right?) In terms of functionality, both software packages will probably meet your objectives, but introduce unique quirks on how to do them. Networker's advantages are less per-file management, so you can put more clients and more files on a single server. (The relatively low supportable file quantities per server is one of my big hovering concerns with TSM that didn't exist entirely with Networker.) Networker also allows multiplexing sessions to a single tape, so provided your network/disk pipe is big enough, I'd say it's easier to keep the tape drives streaming. The disadvantage to switching to Networker from TSM is that a lot more media management is required. There's no reclaimation, so when it's on a tape, you're lo
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
I _ALWAYS_ recommend having two products on the table. It's AMAZING what competition does to pricing. (And make sure you get them to compete on maintenance pricing, too. They don't like to, but they can.) --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kelly Lipp Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 12:55 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Wow! Dave, thanks! I may use this as a selling tool! Isn't it funny how the pricing varies depending upon the level of competition! Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mussulman Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 1:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Hi John, Here's some perspective from someone who's currently transitioning from Networker to TSM. My first blush is I'm a little surprised EMC came in at such a dramatic discount: Saving umpteen thousands of dollars is the main reason we switched from them to IBM. (Although I think the state IBM contracts give us an advantage.) It's probably important to understand how Networker is licensed. The quote may not map to your environment, and might explain some of the cost. EMC nickel and dimes you to death. You need individual client count licenses for each system. You need a blanket license for each different operating system (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc.) You need the server license. You need a license per jukebox (varying costs depending on size.) You need a license for disk storage (varying costs depending on size.) NDMP? VSS? Clusters? Those are individual licenses too (per system, not blanket for all systems.) Also, investigate their maintenance costs... Ours were on the order of 10x what IBM offered. This list might complain about the idiocay of CPU licensing (which I agree with, especially for a storage-centric product,) but it's night-and-day better than the ala carte menu Networker requires. It also means that when that next new gotta-have-it feature comes out, it too is probably not included in your software maintenance and will need a new license. We'd been using Networker since it was BudTool, but to add the software licensing for the advanced disk objects (B2D) and MacOS support (another thing we were adding,) on top of our yearly support, was enough to justify investigating other products and deciding to purchase TSM. So, if your costs are too good to be true, they might just be. Also, as you surmised, the transition is hard. Getting up to speed on new backup software, learning its quirks, documenting it for administration and user-level docs, different reporting needs, etc.. Dealing with the hardware juggling to support an old production server and a new server that moves from evaluation to semi-production to production is a challenge. I'm a year into it, and I don't foresee shutting down our Networker server in 2007; probably not entirely until next summer. (Of course, this is a problem that throwing money into can solve, but you're in this situation because you wanted to save money, right?) In terms of functionality, both software packages will probably meet your objectives, but introduce unique quirks on how to do them. Networker's advantages are less per-file management, so you can put more clients and more files on a single server. (The relatively low supportable file quantities per server is one of my big hovering concerns with TSM that didn't exist entirely with Networker.) Networker also allows multiplexing sessions to a single tape, so provided your network/disk pipe is big enough, I'd say it's easier to keep the tape drives streaming. The disadvantage to switching to Networker from TSM is that a lot more media management is required. There's no reclaimation, so when it's on a tape, you're locked in and if you want that tape to recycle appropriately, you need to make sure the dependencies on it also cycle appropriately. That can be a pretty manual task, especially as clients go on/off the network. You'll find the staging and cloning tools in Networker require much more work than in TSM (although I understand that's improving, most admins I know control this with their own home-brew scripts, which is questionable when off-site copies are critical to your backups.) Other than that, that software's pretty much the same. It backs up and restores your stuff. It runs on almost anything (client and server.) Both companies have new upgrades that force new graphic admin tools on them their customers don't l
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Wow! Dave, thanks! I may use this as a selling tool! Isn't it funny how the pricing varies depending upon the level of competition! Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Mussulman Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 1:00 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Hi John, Here's some perspective from someone who's currently transitioning from Networker to TSM. My first blush is I'm a little surprised EMC came in at such a dramatic discount: Saving umpteen thousands of dollars is the main reason we switched from them to IBM. (Although I think the state IBM contracts give us an advantage.) It's probably important to understand how Networker is licensed. The quote may not map to your environment, and might explain some of the cost. EMC nickel and dimes you to death. You need individual client count licenses for each system. You need a blanket license for each different operating system (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc.) You need the server license. You need a license per jukebox (varying costs depending on size.) You need a license for disk storage (varying costs depending on size.) NDMP? VSS? Clusters? Those are individual licenses too (per system, not blanket for all systems.) Also, investigate their maintenance costs... Ours were on the order of 10x what IBM offered. This list might complain about the idiocay of CPU licensing (which I agree with, especially for a storage-centric product,) but it's night-and-day better than the ala carte menu Networker requires. It also means that when that next new gotta-have-it feature comes out, it too is probably not included in your software maintenance and will need a new license. We'd been using Networker since it was BudTool, but to add the software licensing for the advanced disk objects (B2D) and MacOS support (another thing we were adding,) on top of our yearly support, was enough to justify investigating other products and deciding to purchase TSM. So, if your costs are too good to be true, they might just be. Also, as you surmised, the transition is hard. Getting up to speed on new backup software, learning its quirks, documenting it for administration and user-level docs, different reporting needs, etc.. Dealing with the hardware juggling to support an old production server and a new server that moves from evaluation to semi-production to production is a challenge. I'm a year into it, and I don't foresee shutting down our Networker server in 2007; probably not entirely until next summer. (Of course, this is a problem that throwing money into can solve, but you're in this situation because you wanted to save money, right?) In terms of functionality, both software packages will probably meet your objectives, but introduce unique quirks on how to do them. Networker's advantages are less per-file management, so you can put more clients and more files on a single server. (The relatively low supportable file quantities per server is one of my big hovering concerns with TSM that didn't exist entirely with Networker.) Networker also allows multiplexing sessions to a single tape, so provided your network/disk pipe is big enough, I'd say it's easier to keep the tape drives streaming. The disadvantage to switching to Networker from TSM is that a lot more media management is required. There's no reclaimation, so when it's on a tape, you're locked in and if you want that tape to recycle appropriately, you need to make sure the dependencies on it also cycle appropriately. That can be a pretty manual task, especially as clients go on/off the network. You'll find the staging and cloning tools in Networker require much more work than in TSM (although I understand that's improving, most admins I know control this with their own home-brew scripts, which is questionable when off-site copies are critical to your backups.) Other than that, that software's pretty much the same. It backs up and restores your stuff. It runs on almost anything (client and server.) Both companies have new upgrades that force new graphic admin tools on them their customers don't like. Navigating either product's support tools/websites can be menacing at times. Both have listservs with passionate, sharp, seasoned admins willing to help others. Both are exorbitantly expensive because, well, they can be. I was a little disgusted with EMC when we decided to purchase TSM, for more reasons than I've listed here, so maybe I'm a little biased. (Contact me off-list if you'd like to know more.) I think it's important to toe the waters with backup software and hardware every few years to find out what other
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Hi John, Here's some perspective from someone who's currently transitioning from Networker to TSM. My first blush is I'm a little surprised EMC came in at such a dramatic discount: Saving umpteen thousands of dollars is the main reason we switched from them to IBM. (Although I think the state IBM contracts give us an advantage.) It's probably important to understand how Networker is licensed. The quote may not map to your environment, and might explain some of the cost. EMC nickel and dimes you to death. You need individual client count licenses for each system. You need a blanket license for each different operating system (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc.) You need the server license. You need a license per jukebox (varying costs depending on size.) You need a license for disk storage (varying costs depending on size.) NDMP? VSS? Clusters? Those are individual licenses too (per system, not blanket for all systems.) Also, investigate their maintenance costs... Ours were on the order of 10x what IBM offered. This list might complain about the idiocay of CPU licensing (which I agree with, especially for a storage-centric product,) but it's night-and-day better than the ala carte menu Networker requires. It also means that when that next new gotta-have-it feature comes out, it too is probably not included in your software maintenance and will need a new license. We'd been using Networker since it was BudTool, but to add the software licensing for the advanced disk objects (B2D) and MacOS support (another thing we were adding,) on top of our yearly support, was enough to justify investigating other products and deciding to purchase TSM. So, if your costs are too good to be true, they might just be. Also, as you surmised, the transition is hard. Getting up to speed on new backup software, learning its quirks, documenting it for administration and user-level docs, different reporting needs, etc.. Dealing with the hardware juggling to support an old production server and a new server that moves from evaluation to semi-production to production is a challenge. I'm a year into it, and I don't foresee shutting down our Networker server in 2007; probably not entirely until next summer. (Of course, this is a problem that throwing money into can solve, but you're in this situation because you wanted to save money, right?) In terms of functionality, both software packages will probably meet your objectives, but introduce unique quirks on how to do them. Networker's advantages are less per-file management, so you can put more clients and more files on a single server. (The relatively low supportable file quantities per server is one of my big hovering concerns with TSM that didn't exist entirely with Networker.) Networker also allows multiplexing sessions to a single tape, so provided your network/disk pipe is big enough, I'd say it's easier to keep the tape drives streaming. The disadvantage to switching to Networker from TSM is that a lot more media management is required. There's no reclaimation, so when it's on a tape, you're locked in and if you want that tape to recycle appropriately, you need to make sure the dependencies on it also cycle appropriately. That can be a pretty manual task, especially as clients go on/off the network. You'll find the staging and cloning tools in Networker require much more work than in TSM (although I understand that's improving, most admins I know control this with their own home-brew scripts, which is questionable when off-site copies are critical to your backups.) Other than that, that software's pretty much the same. It backs up and restores your stuff. It runs on almost anything (client and server.) Both companies have new upgrades that force new graphic admin tools on them their customers don't like. Navigating either product's support tools/websites can be menacing at times. Both have listservs with passionate, sharp, seasoned admins willing to help others. Both are exorbitantly expensive because, well, they can be. I was a little disgusted with EMC when we decided to purchase TSM, for more reasons than I've listed here, so maybe I'm a little biased. (Contact me off-list if you'd like to know more.) I think it's important to toe the waters with backup software and hardware every few years to find out what other products are doing, evaluate your costs against new pricing, etc. but I would caution to really spend some time investigating what the new software will cost you in terms of support, functionality, daily maintenance times, transition times, etc. and decide if those umpteen thousands are worth it. Ask me in a year or two if they did in our environment. ;) Dave On Fri, Jul 27, 2007 at 01:06:10PM -0500, Schneider, John wrote: > Kelly, > Thank you for your post. There is no reason to say we are > unhappy with TSM. Since I inherited this environment about a year ago, > due to lots of hardware and software version upgrade
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
John, In your comparison, you may want to include option #3 - tar (unix) and backup (Windows). The software cost is incredibly low and there should be zero compatibility issues with the installed operating systems :-) Have fun rock hunting. Neil -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 2:06 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Kelly, Thank you for your post. There is no reason to say we are unhappy with TSM. Since I inherited this environment about a year ago, due to lots of hardware and software version upgrades, and help from the Windows and AIX teams, our daily backup completion status (neither missed nor failed)has gone from 95% to 99%. That is less than 10 out of the ~1000 clients daily, which is quite good by industry standards. No, according to management, cost is the driving factor. The proposals between IBM and it's closest competitor are, over a total three year cost, umpteen thousand dollars apart (I won't say the exact figure). It is enough to make everybody take notice. Of course, no one has figured in the cost of conversion, both in software and manpower. That will be huge. Not to mention the huge distraction and lost opportunity cost and risk of outages that could result.\I agree that IBM ought to go back and sharpen their pencil, and bargain away this threat to their territory. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kelly Lipp Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:01 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison And besides cost, is there any apparent technical reason to undertake such a thing in the first place? I.e., are you or your management in some way unhappy with the backup processing? Again, except for the cost? I also think there is a golden opportunity to work with your current backup vendor to get the cost for you inline with what the proposed competition is offering. Doing this may forestall the entire rock fetch you've been asked to undertake. The real funny thing is that at the end of the day, the cost (when done over a period of years rather than a single purchase) will be nearly identical no matter which vendor you choose. But you will have been through the rock fetch, and perhaps a painful migration only to learn this simple fact. If only management (who should know better than to waste valuable time and money) understood this before sending us poor technical slobs on the mission... Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:18 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Interesting. We are doing the same thing, but with multiple vendors, for the EXACT same reason you are. We are generating a single RFI that we will send to each vendor, and get our comparison that way. Not done yet, and I'm not looking forward to it. I like TSM as a product, and I'm not looking forward to a possible migration, 'cause like you said, there will be a cost associated with it (more media/drives?, hardware, fill in the blank). We are supposed to be talking with EMC soon, and have already talked to CommVault, BakBone, Syncsort, and Symantec. Good luck with that. :) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:55 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this email message is privileged and confidential in
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Stuart, Thanks for your excellent point. One thing that frequently determines the reputation of a backup product within a company is the quality of the hardware it is running on, and the skillset of the people managing it. We had one remote location with an old LTO1 tape library, running TSM 5.1 on a 700MHz Pentium II Win2K box with a 10/100 card, and the people supporting it hated TSM because "this TSM server is always having problems". We have since upgraded it to a new IBM LTO3 library and a CDL 210, running TSM 5.3.4.2 on a new Win2003 server with dual 3.2Ghz Xeons w/GigE, and all the problems have gone away. Now the people who monitor it have nothing to complain about, so they complain about our Exchange servers instead! Time to upgrade those next, I guess. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stuart Lamble Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 5:57 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison On 26/07/2007, at 2:54 AM, Schneider, John wrote: > Greetings, > We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our > management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato > Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. > This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and > so it got management's attention. > We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, > so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also > require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the > migration, which would detract from the cost savings. > So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based > on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two > products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two > products that would give me a head start? Funny you say this. Monash was a Legato (now owned by EMC) shop until the TSM migration around 3-4 years ago; I suspect that a large number of the problems that were perceived to be Networker's fault were actually the fault of the aging DLT silos and drives that underlay Networker. I still have fond memories of those silos; they gave me a great deal of callout pay every time they had a stuck cartridge or similar. :-) I also suspect that the greater reliability we've had since putting in TSM is more because we also got in new tape silos (LTO2, now half LTO2 and half LTO3, and soon to be half LTO3 and half LTO4) - if we'd stuck with the DLT silos, we'd still be in a world of pain, regardless of the software. There are plusses and minuses to both products. Some points to consider: * Networker uses the traditional "full plus incrementals, or dump levels" system. Monash used a pattern of "full once a month; incremental every other day; and a dump level interwoven" - so, for example, it might go "full, incremental, level 8, incremental, level 7, incremental, level 9, level 2, incremental, level 8, incremental, etc." - the idea being to minimise the number of backups needed to restore a system. * Networker indexes are somewhat analogous to the TSM database. In theory, you can scan each tape to rebuild the indexes if they're lost; in practice, if you lose the indexes, you're pretty much dead - there's just too much data to scan if the system is more than moderately sized. Yes, Networker backs up the indexes each day. :) * At least the versions of Networker (up to 7.x) we used doesn't support the idea of staging to disk - everything goes directly to tape. However, data streams from multiple clients are multiplexed onto tape to get the write speeds up. This is good for backups, but does make recovery slower (since the data read will include a lot of data for other clients.) * No more reclamation or copy pools to deal with (because of the traditional full/incremental/dump level system). So the burden placed on the tape drives is probably going to be significantly lower (although you will be backing up more data each night than you would with TSM.) * I don't think Networker has anything analogous to TSM's scratch pool: volumes belong to a pool of tapes, and there's no shuffling between the pool. So if the "standard" pool has a hundred tapes available for use, but the "database" pool is out of tapes and needs one more, you need to manually intervene. This *may* have been because of the way we configured Networker, though, and it may also have changed in the interim. Note that you *have* to have a separate pool of tapes for index backups. My honest assessment mirrors that of the other people who have replied: use this as an opportunity to negotiate better pricing from I
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Kelly, Thank you for your post. There is no reason to say we are unhappy with TSM. Since I inherited this environment about a year ago, due to lots of hardware and software version upgrades, and help from the Windows and AIX teams, our daily backup completion status (neither missed nor failed)has gone from 95% to 99%. That is less than 10 out of the ~1000 clients daily, which is quite good by industry standards. No, according to management, cost is the driving factor. The proposals between IBM and it's closest competitor are, over a total three year cost, umpteen thousand dollars apart (I won't say the exact figure). It is enough to make everybody take notice. Of course, no one has figured in the cost of conversion, both in software and manpower. That will be huge. Not to mention the huge distraction and lost opportunity cost and risk of outages that could result.\I agree that IBM ought to go back and sharpen their pencil, and bargain away this threat to their territory. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kelly Lipp Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:01 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison And besides cost, is there any apparent technical reason to undertake such a thing in the first place? I.e., are you or your management in some way unhappy with the backup processing? Again, except for the cost? I also think there is a golden opportunity to work with your current backup vendor to get the cost for you inline with what the proposed competition is offering. Doing this may forestall the entire rock fetch you've been asked to undertake. The real funny thing is that at the end of the day, the cost (when done over a period of years rather than a single purchase) will be nearly identical no matter which vendor you choose. But you will have been through the rock fetch, and perhaps a painful migration only to learn this simple fact. If only management (who should know better than to waste valuable time and money) understood this before sending us poor technical slobs on the mission... Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:18 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Interesting. We are doing the same thing, but with multiple vendors, for the EXACT same reason you are. We are generating a single RFI that we will send to each vendor, and get our comparison that way. Not done yet, and I'm not looking forward to it. I like TSM as a product, and I'm not looking forward to a possible migration, 'cause like you said, there will be a cost associated with it (more media/drives?, hardware, fill in the blank). We are supposed to be talking with EMC soon, and have already talked to CommVault, BakBone, Syncsort, and Symantec. Good luck with that. :) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:55 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this email message is privileged and confidential information and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named in the address. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this information is strictly prohibited. If you received this information in error, please notify the sender and delete this information from your computer and retain no copies of any of this information.
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
I'm not familiar with Networker except in it's old i-just-do-full-dumps form. How does it deal with mixed retention requirements? Can you set up one directory to be retained for 7 years and another to be retained for 90 days like you can with TSM/ > On 26/07/2007, at 2:54 AM, Schneider, John wrote: > >> Greetings, >> We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our >> management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato >> Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. >> This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and >> so it got management's attention. >> We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 >> clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would >> also >> require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the >> migration, which would detract from the cost savings. >> So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based >> on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two >> products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two >> products that would give me a head start? > > Funny you say this. Monash was a Legato (now owned by EMC) shop until > the TSM migration around 3-4 years ago; I suspect that a large number > of the problems that were perceived to be Networker's fault were > actually the fault of the aging DLT silos and drives that underlay > Networker. I still have fond memories of those silos; they gave me a > great deal of callout pay every time they had a stuck cartridge or > similar. :-) > > I also suspect that the greater reliability we've had since putting > in TSM is more because we also got in new tape silos (LTO2, now half > LTO2 and half LTO3, and soon to be half LTO3 and half LTO4) - if we'd > stuck with the DLT silos, we'd still be in a world of pain, > regardless of the software. > > There are plusses and minuses to both products. Some points to consider: > >* Networker uses the traditional "full plus incrementals, or dump > levels" system. Monash used a pattern of "full once a month; > incremental every other day; and a dump level interwoven" - so, for > example, it might go "full, incremental, level 8, incremental, level > 7, incremental, level 9, level 2, incremental, level 8, incremental, > etc." - the idea being to minimise the number of backups needed to > restore a system. >* Networker indexes are somewhat analogous to the TSM database. In > theory, you can scan each tape to rebuild the indexes if they're > lost; in practice, if you lose the indexes, you're pretty much dead - > there's just too much data to scan if the system is more than > moderately sized. Yes, Networker backs up the indexes each day. :) >* At least the versions of Networker (up to 7.x) we used doesn't > support the idea of staging to disk - everything goes directly to > tape. However, data streams from multiple clients are multiplexed > onto tape to get the write speeds up. This is good for backups, but > does make recovery slower (since the data read will include a lot of > data for other clients.) >* No more reclamation or copy pools to deal with (because of the > traditional full/incremental/dump level system). So the burden placed > on the tape drives is probably going to be significantly lower > (although you will be backing up more data each night than you would > with TSM.) >* I don't think Networker has anything analogous to TSM's scratch > pool: volumes belong to a pool of tapes, and there's no shuffling > between the pool. So if the "standard" pool has a hundred tapes > available for use, but the "database" pool is out of tapes and needs > one more, you need to manually intervene. This *may* have been > because of the way we configured Networker, though, and it may also > have changed in the interim. Note that you *have* to have a separate > pool of tapes for index backups. > > My honest assessment mirrors that of the other people who have > replied: use this as an opportunity to negotiate better pricing from > IBM, and point out to the powers that be that there are risks > involved with moving to a different backup product. There's nothing > wrong with Networker, it's a good system, but you aren't familiar > with it; it takes time with any new product to learn the tricks of > the trade. It's only in the past year or two that we've started to > feel more competent with TSM, as we've found and dealt with problems > in the production system which never showed up (and would never show > up) in the smaller scale proof of concept. > > You also should note that it took Monash a couple of years to finish > the migration from Networker to TSM; I would expect a migration in > the other direction would take at least a year. I definitely would > not advise a dramatic cut-over - do a small number of servers at a > time to make sure you're not pushing the server too hard (and > besides, you want to stagg
AW: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
It's quite old but I once did a comparison between TSM 5.1 and Networker 6 http://www.autovault.org/discus/index.html click "Tivoli Storage Manager(tm) Scripts" click "other" click "Compare TSM 5.1 with Legato 6." Not all information might be accurrate anymore but it could serve as a starting point. HTH Thomas Rupp -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Im Auftrag von Schneider, John Gesendet: Mittwoch, 25. Juli 2007 18:55 An: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Betreff: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Vorarlberger Illwerke AG ein Unternehmen von illwerke vkw Rechtsform: Aktiengesellschaft, Sitz: Bregenz, Firmenbuchnummer: FN 59202 m, Firmenbuchgericht: LG Feldkirch, UID-Nr.: ATU 36737402
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
>> On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:39:32 -0500, "Bell, Charles (Chip)" <[EMAIL >> PROTECTED]> said: > Cost was purely our reason, and I agree with everything else you > said. IBM freaked out and came back with a drastically reduced > price. So at this point, I'm probably doing "due diligence", but to > my face they are saying that we may still replace our backup > software, so rock-fetching I will go until told > otherwise. RUFF! Make sure that the burden of evaluating license requirements is a big prominent line item in your cost evaluation of TSM. I'm going to pant-pant-ruff up my business partner on just this topic this afternoon. - Allen S. Rout
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
On Jul 25, 2007, at 7:43 PM, Curtis Preston wrote: My recommendation remains the same: changing backup products is a bad thing unless you're doing it to meet requirements. Changing due to cost of licensing is a really bad idea and won't save you money, will probably cost you money, and will result in instability and a lot of pain. Indeed... It's like looking for the optimum pick in the stock market: today's underpriced gem may be next month's rhinestone. Once the new vendor has you in their clutches, the next contract period may have a rather different price. That said, IBM still needs to get back to realism in its licensing algorithms. Richard Sims
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
My recommendation remains the same: changing backup products is a bad thing unless you're doing it to meet requirements. Changing due to cost of licensing is a really bad idea and won't save you money, will probably cost you money, and will result in instability and a lot of pain. I will two of the comments in Stuart's excellent response: >Networker ... doesn't ... support the idea of staging to disk The versions you used didn't have it, but current versions do support disk staging. Backups sent to a disk staging device will be automatically copied to tape to make room for the next set of backups, and will be kept on disk until space is needed. >I don't think Networker has anything analogous to TSM's scratch >pool True, but you can tell it to reclaim from other pools. Meaning if pool A is out of tapes, and pool B has tapes, it will grab a tape from pool B and use it.
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
On 26/07/2007, at 2:54 AM, Schneider, John wrote: Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Funny you say this. Monash was a Legato (now owned by EMC) shop until the TSM migration around 3-4 years ago; I suspect that a large number of the problems that were perceived to be Networker's fault were actually the fault of the aging DLT silos and drives that underlay Networker. I still have fond memories of those silos; they gave me a great deal of callout pay every time they had a stuck cartridge or similar. :-) I also suspect that the greater reliability we've had since putting in TSM is more because we also got in new tape silos (LTO2, now half LTO2 and half LTO3, and soon to be half LTO3 and half LTO4) - if we'd stuck with the DLT silos, we'd still be in a world of pain, regardless of the software. There are plusses and minuses to both products. Some points to consider: * Networker uses the traditional "full plus incrementals, or dump levels" system. Monash used a pattern of "full once a month; incremental every other day; and a dump level interwoven" - so, for example, it might go "full, incremental, level 8, incremental, level 7, incremental, level 9, level 2, incremental, level 8, incremental, etc." - the idea being to minimise the number of backups needed to restore a system. * Networker indexes are somewhat analogous to the TSM database. In theory, you can scan each tape to rebuild the indexes if they're lost; in practice, if you lose the indexes, you're pretty much dead - there's just too much data to scan if the system is more than moderately sized. Yes, Networker backs up the indexes each day. :) * At least the versions of Networker (up to 7.x) we used doesn't support the idea of staging to disk - everything goes directly to tape. However, data streams from multiple clients are multiplexed onto tape to get the write speeds up. This is good for backups, but does make recovery slower (since the data read will include a lot of data for other clients.) * No more reclamation or copy pools to deal with (because of the traditional full/incremental/dump level system). So the burden placed on the tape drives is probably going to be significantly lower (although you will be backing up more data each night than you would with TSM.) * I don't think Networker has anything analogous to TSM's scratch pool: volumes belong to a pool of tapes, and there's no shuffling between the pool. So if the "standard" pool has a hundred tapes available for use, but the "database" pool is out of tapes and needs one more, you need to manually intervene. This *may* have been because of the way we configured Networker, though, and it may also have changed in the interim. Note that you *have* to have a separate pool of tapes for index backups. My honest assessment mirrors that of the other people who have replied: use this as an opportunity to negotiate better pricing from IBM, and point out to the powers that be that there are risks involved with moving to a different backup product. There's nothing wrong with Networker, it's a good system, but you aren't familiar with it; it takes time with any new product to learn the tricks of the trade. It's only in the past year or two that we've started to feel more competent with TSM, as we've found and dealt with problems in the production system which never showed up (and would never show up) in the smaller scale proof of concept. You also should note that it took Monash a couple of years to finish the migration from Networker to TSM; I would expect a migration in the other direction would take at least a year. I definitely would not advise a dramatic cut-over - do a small number of servers at a time to make sure you're not pushing the server too hard (and besides, you want to stagger the full backups so they don't all take place on the same day ...) Oh, one other point that comes directly from Monash's experience with Networker (assuming you do go down that path): we had a number of large servers (mail in particular) that would take a very long time to do a complete full backup. We ended up setting Networker up to stagger the full backups on their filesystems: system filesystems on day 1; mai
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
No doubt. Cost was purely our reason, and I agree with everything else you said. IBM freaked out and came back with a drastically reduced price. So at this point, I'm probably doing "due diligence", but to my face they are saying that we may still replace our backup software, so rock-fetching I will go until told otherwise. RUFF! -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kelly Lipp Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:01 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison And besides cost, is there any apparent technical reason to undertake such a thing in the first place? I.e., are you or your management in some way unhappy with the backup processing? Again, except for the cost? I also think there is a golden opportunity to work with your current backup vendor to get the cost for you inline with what the proposed competition is offering. Doing this may forestall the entire rock fetch you've been asked to undertake. The real funny thing is that at the end of the day, the cost (when done over a period of years rather than a single purchase) will be nearly identical no matter which vendor you choose. But you will have been through the rock fetch, and perhaps a painful migration only to learn this simple fact. If only management (who should know better than to waste valuable time and money) understood this before sending us poor technical slobs on the mission... Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:18 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Interesting. We are doing the same thing, but with multiple vendors, for the EXACT same reason you are. We are generating a single RFI that we will send to each vendor, and get our comparison that way. Not done yet, and I'm not looking forward to it. I like TSM as a product, and I'm not looking forward to a possible migration, 'cause like you said, there will be a cost associated with it (more media/drives?, hardware, fill in the blank). We are supposed to be talking with EMC soon, and have already talked to CommVault, BakBone, Syncsort, and Symantec. Good luck with that. :) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:55 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this email message is privileged and confidential information and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named in the address. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this information is strictly prohibited. If you received this information in error, please notify the sender and delete this information from your computer and retain no copies of any of this information.
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
First, my response is aimed at giving you some ammo to use in meetings, not aimed at shooting the messenger. Since the licensing is such a small part of what you pay to maintain a backup environment, moving to another backup product purely on that is absolutely a wrong decision. The cost of a backup environment comes from a number of things, not the least of which is cost of operation. If your backup environment is stable and you're meeting your RTO/RPO objectives, then switching to another product just because its licensing is cheaper is a sure-fire way to create instabilities and recovery failures. I'm not saying that this would be EMC/NetWorker's fault, I'm saying that switching backup products is a HUGE undertaking with a very steep learning curve and will undoubtedly result in instability for an indeterminate amount of time. (It will also cost quite a bit, completely negating the original reason for switching.) This is especially true when switching to/from TSM. It's very hard to mentally switch from the versions method that TSM uses to the grandfather/father/son methods of other products and vice versa. If you said "we have this requirement and we've consulted both IBM and independent TSM experts and they all tell us TSM can't do it," then I'd say see if another product can do it. But that's, of course, not what you're saying. I agree with another respondent that said use this position to renegotiate pricing with IBM. --- W. Curtis Preston Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 9:55 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
And besides cost, is there any apparent technical reason to undertake such a thing in the first place? I.e., are you or your management in some way unhappy with the backup processing? Again, except for the cost? I also think there is a golden opportunity to work with your current backup vendor to get the cost for you inline with what the proposed competition is offering. Doing this may forestall the entire rock fetch you've been asked to undertake. The real funny thing is that at the end of the day, the cost (when done over a period of years rather than a single purchase) will be nearly identical no matter which vendor you choose. But you will have been through the rock fetch, and perhaps a painful migration only to learn this simple fact. If only management (who should know better than to waste valuable time and money) understood this before sending us poor technical slobs on the mission... Kelly J. Lipp VP Manufacturing & CTO STORServer, Inc. 485-B Elkton Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80907 719-266-8777 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bell, Charles (Chip) Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:18 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Interesting. We are doing the same thing, but with multiple vendors, for the EXACT same reason you are. We are generating a single RFI that we will send to each vendor, and get our comparison that way. Not done yet, and I'm not looking forward to it. I like TSM as a product, and I'm not looking forward to a possible migration, 'cause like you said, there will be a cost associated with it (more media/drives?, hardware, fill in the blank). We are supposed to be talking with EMC soon, and have already talked to CommVault, BakBone, Syncsort, and Symantec. Good luck with that. :) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:55 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this email message is privileged and confidential information and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named in the address. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this information is strictly prohibited. If you received this information in error, please notify the sender and delete this information from your computer and retain no copies of any of this information.
Re: TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Interesting. We are doing the same thing, but with multiple vendors, for the EXACT same reason you are. We are generating a single RFI that we will send to each vendor, and get our comparison that way. Not done yet, and I'm not looking forward to it. I like TSM as a product, and I'm not looking forward to a possible migration, 'cause like you said, there will be a cost associated with it (more media/drives?, hardware, fill in the blank). We are supposed to be talking with EMC soon, and have already talked to CommVault, BakBone, Syncsort, and Symantec. Good luck with that. :) -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Schneider, John Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 11:55 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this email message is privileged and confidential information and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named in the address. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this information is strictly prohibited. If you received this information in error, please notify the sender and delete this information from your computer and retain no copies of any of this information.
TSM vs. Legato Networker Comparison
Greetings, We have been a TSM shop for many years, but EMC came to our management with a proposal to replace our TSM licenses with Legato Networker, at a better price than what we are paying for TSM today. This came right on the heels of paying our large TSM license bill, and so it got management's attention. We have an infrastructure of 15 TSM servers and about 1000 clients, so this would be a large and painful migration. It would also require a great deal of new hardware and consultant costs during the migration, which would detract from the cost savings. So instead of jumping from one backup product to another based on price alone, we have been asked to do an evaluation between the two products. Do any of you have any feature comparisons between the two products that would give me a head start? Best Regards, John D. Schneider Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
