Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Netbackup from Symantec would be TSM's major competitor. You could also look at CommVault. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of woodbm Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:11 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: alternatives to TSM due to license costs Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Note: Please be aware that unencrypted electronic mail is not secure. For this reason, please do not send any sensitive personal information such as your address, drivers license, policy number, Social Security Number, or claims information by unencrypted electronic mail. The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you. --
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
+1 on the challenge!! We were audited, and what a nightmare at first. They tried to charge us for boxes that had been retired, but were unlocked for legal restore reasons, they also tried to inflate the cost of clustered boxes and TDP setups. You only have to pay for cores on the ACTIVE nodes of a cluster. Now if both are active then you pay for both, but if you run, as we do, active/passive clusters you only pay for the node with the higher number of cpu/cores. At times our passive node will not have the resources assigned to it the primary node has. I kept challenging and pushing back on them, and they finally sent me to another crew that had more sense. Once we agreed that IBM's licensing statements were valid because that's what we used to purchase, things were good. We even had a few extra. Not only that, but despite their assertions you DO NOT have to buy your licenses from them, you can get a quote and buy from your normal reseller so your normal discounts apply. See Ya' Howard Coles Jr. John 3:16! -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Remco Post Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 4:15 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs On 30 dec 2009, at 20:11, woodbm wrote: Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. there are a few products that people try to compare TSM to; Networker, Netbackup and CommVault come to mind. Keep in mind that all of these require full backups at some interval, occupying much more tape that TSM does. So when presenting alternatives, do not only consider licensing cost but also the cost of media, servers, network etc. Also keep in mind that some products are disk to tape only, requiring you to have at least one tape drive for each concurrent backup/restore session, or implement expensive VTL solutions while TSM doesn't need one. (The IBM VTS for the mainframe was running ADSM for a reason!). Licensing schemes for these products are completely different. While IBM charges for cpu's, competitors also charge for functionality, such as archiving? drm? The number of volumes you can manage in a library? The number of drives? etc. Look into what you need and make sure you have the total picture. As a word of advise, make sure that the audit is correct. I've seen IBM try to charge customers for TDP for databases for DB2, while everybody knows that there is no such product! If in doubt, challenge the audit results, this might be worth the effort. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
On 30 dec 2009, at 20:11, woodbm wrote: Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. there are a few products that people try to compare TSM to; Networker, Netbackup and CommVault come to mind. Keep in mind that all of these require full backups at some interval, occupying much more tape that TSM does. So when presenting alternatives, do not only consider licensing cost but also the cost of media, servers, network etc. Also keep in mind that some products are disk to tape only, requiring you to have at least one tape drive for each concurrent backup/restore session, or implement expensive VTL solutions while TSM doesn't need one. (The IBM VTS for the mainframe was running ADSM for a reason!). Licensing schemes for these products are completely different. While IBM charges for cpu's, competitors also charge for functionality, such as archiving? drm? The number of volumes you can manage in a library? The number of drives? etc. Look into what you need and make sure you have the total picture. As a word of advise, make sure that the audit is correct. I've seen IBM try to charge customers for TDP for databases for DB2, while everybody knows that there is no such product! If in doubt, challenge the audit results, this might be worth the effort. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
This has been discussed many times, where you can search the List archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/adsm-l@vm.marist.edu/ and similar sites for key terms such as netbackup and backup products to review past explorations of the topic.
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
At least let IBM know you are thinking about jumping ship and that they need to help with the pricing on the new licenses or you are gone! You have the leverage at this point so you might as well use it to your advantage. Based on our many competitive situations along the way with our appliance we do this all the time. For the low end, TSM is not a good fit generally. However, if you have more than 50 clients then TSM is a good fit for the reasons Remco states. Taking a giant step back to the 20th century with your backups (which is what you'll be doing with any other product) is generally a bad idea. Oh, IBM! Are you listening? The current licensing scheme is just killing us! Stop the madness before we lose more of our installed base. Stop the madness before I lose another Appliance deal! Kelly Lipp Chief Technology Officer www.storserver.com 719-266-8777 x7105 STORServer solves your data backup challenges. Once and for all. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Remco Post Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 3:15 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs On 30 dec 2009, at 20:11, woodbm wrote: Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. there are a few products that people try to compare TSM to; Networker, Netbackup and CommVault come to mind. Keep in mind that all of these require full backups at some interval, occupying much more tape that TSM does. So when presenting alternatives, do not only consider licensing cost but also the cost of media, servers, network etc. Also keep in mind that some products are disk to tape only, requiring you to have at least one tape drive for each concurrent backup/restore session, or implement expensive VTL solutions while TSM doesn't need one. (The IBM VTS for the mainframe was running ADSM for a reason!). Licensing schemes for these products are completely different. While IBM charges for cpu's, competitors also charge for functionality, such as archiving? drm? The number of volumes you can manage in a library? The number of drives? etc. Look into what you need and make sure you have the total picture. As a word of advise, make sure that the audit is correct. I've seen IBM try to charge customers for TDP for databases for DB2, while everybody knows that there is no such product! If in doubt, challenge the audit results, this might be worth the effort. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +-- -- Met vriendelijke groeten/Kind Regards, Remco Post r.p...@plcs.nl +31 6 248 21 622
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Hello Bryan, This is an interesting topic. Here are several thoughts and questions. Licensing for NetBackup is also based on the class of the server and the class of the clients. The pricing keeps changing as some things that used to have a separate optional cost are merged into the base cost. As Both IBM and Symantec like to use 3rd party sellers it might also be interesting to find the best price. EMC's Avamar and Symantec's Pure disk are a little bit more like TSM in that they only do incremental backups. They take this a bit further alone then TSM in that they do block or segment incremental backups. They are a little different in that the block/segment is single instance across all backup clients covered by a backup server. I wonder if IBM is going to add this feature. Note this is not media or storage pool dedupe which Avamar, Pure disk and TSM support. They are also like TSM in that they require a data base to hold the meta-data. But different in that they hold the data blocks/segments also. This makes things interesting in that as far as I can tell a full backup of the backup server is not possible other than by replication. This make things interesting if one worries about backup server database corruption due to a software bug. I believe that comm vault also supports this backup model. But they are a little bit different in that they will move the data from the backup server to tape in the dedupe format, where the others reconstitute the deduped data before writing the data to tape. I am not sure if Syncsort and FDR also play in this game. In the Microsoft only world, Microsoft now sells a vss based product that works on windows and windows data base products including Exchange and Sharepoint. The last I heard they do not support other products such as Oracle DB and IBM DB/2. One could also look at hardware solutions from vendors such as data domain and netapp for many of one's backup needs. Not as full featured as the above products, has anyone been looking at the open sourced products? len -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of woodbm Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 2:11 PM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search? I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
Bryan, When you ask a TSM forum to recommend some alternative to TSM, that is sort of like asking a devoutly religious man to recommend some religion that is better than his. :-) What kind of answer do you really expect to get? One alternative to TSM that hasn't been mentioned yet is Avamar, a deduplication appliance sold by EMC. I don't work for EMC, or a company who sells EMC products, so this is not a shrouded sales pitch. Last year I led our TSM Team in a proof-of-concept of Avamar, so that is the only reason I know about it. We are not running it in production today, so I am not expert in my opinion. The reason we looked at Avamar was because our management was disgruntled about a TSM license audit we had to endure. Avamar is a disk-only solution, so you will need enough disk space for your entire backup set, because you can't migrate data to tape. But because it is deduplicating the data on the way in, it requires only a fraction of the disk space. For regular filesystem type data, sometimes it is only 1/20th as much disk; for database data it may be much less; for image data it might not deduplicate much at all. If you are backing up VMs, where many of them were built from the same image, the deduplication may be like 1/100th as much disk. So the kind of data you are backing up has a lot to do with how well it deduplicates. EMC has some tools to help size your solution. Most deduplication appliances work like a network share or a VTL, so you have to have a regular backup product in front of them to feed them data. But Avamar provides it's own clients that run on the servers you are backing up. They also have all the special clients you need to backup databases, etc. That is the thing that made me want to look at Avamar at all. We weren't going to have to pay for TSM licenses, then also pay for the deduplication applicance and all the hardware and software maintencance for all that, too. The company I work for did a proof-of-concept of Avamar, as I said. We spent months and tested Windows, Linux, AIX, SQL, Oracle and Exchange clients and they all worked like we expected them to. We didn't run into any problems with how the appliance worked. We also tested the automated replication from one appliance to another appliance about 3 hours away, and that worked well, too. We have not purchased yet, but only because of budget reasons. We liked the product and will pull the trigger as soon as money becomes available. In our situation, the cost of purchasing Avamar new was higher than paying maintenance on TSM licenses. The licensing scheme for Avamar is totally simple, too. You pay for the capacity of Avamar disk space you buy. That is it. The more drawers of space you buy, the higher the price. There is no charge for any of the client software agents, and it doesn't matter how many servers you are backing up, or how big they are. That is all built in to the capacity pricing. That is another reason I like Avamar. They have kept that part extremely simple. One thing about Avamar is that the reporting is weak. They give you basic reports, but they aren't pretty. If you want pretty, you will have to buy an add-on product like EMC Data Protection Manager, which has a lot of features, but will jack up the price. Best Regards, John D. Schneider Cell: (314) 750-8721 Original Message Subject: [ADSM-L] alternatives to TSM due to license costs From: woodbm tsm-fo...@backupcentral.com Date: Wed, December 30, 2009 1:11 pm To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Hello all, I have been tasked with looking at alternatives to TSM due to recent Audit from IBM and the amount of money we just shelled out for the TSM License. I am sure most of you have pertaken to this wonderful experience. I don't really want to move away from TSM, but have to provide alternatives to management. Could anyone direct me to where I can begin my search. I have only used TSM my entire time here. What is the industry leader? Any info or documents or links doing a comparison would be helpful. Also, is the license structure the same for other environments as well or is IBM way out of line? I am going to start with EMC's Avamar/Networker. Thanks much, Bryan +-- |This was sent by woo...@nu.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
- Len Boyle len.bo...@sas.com wrote: Not as full featured as the above products, has anyone been looking at the open sourced products? We use Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/) for the smaller customers (and internally) since it does all we need it to do - but note there's some major limitations in capability. It has proved to be reliable and simple to maintain, but for larger customers the volume of data transfer and storage makes it more cost effective to use TSM. So far we've not found any open product that does an incremental forever backup, but are continually looking.
Re: alternatives to TSM due to license costs
If you have a lot of Windows clients, look at TSM's FASTBACK. It is also disk only, but I believe is cheaper than straight TSM. Does incremental-only, block-level backups. Might save you $$ and not be as drastic a conversion. You could keep your non-WIndows clients as they are. ALso consider if you are planning to move to a Virtual environment sometime soon, a lot of your TSM licenses will disappear. You only pay for the TSM licenses on your ESX server(s), not a license for each client image. At least if there is the possibility of virtualization in your future, be sure to compare what the costs will be AFTER virtualization, between TSM and other products. W On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Xav Paice xpa...@oss.co.nz wrote: - Len Boyle len.bo...@sas.com wrote: Not as full featured as the above products, has anyone been looking at the open sourced products? We use Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/) for the smaller customers (and internally) since it does all we need it to do - but note there's some major limitations in capability. It has proved to be reliable and simple to maintain, but for larger customers the volume of data transfer and storage makes it more cost effective to use TSM. So far we've not found any open product that does an incremental forever backup, but are continually looking.
