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Auditing a Tape Library is the process in which TSM verifies the information it has stored internally about the tapes, their labels and where they are located in the library (slot numbers) with the Physical Tape Library.

Why do you need to audit your library?
From time to time your Library will have maintenance performed on it, Tape Library Arms get jammed, tapes get stuck in drives and need to be manually moved back to their slot and tapes can be manually inserted in Tape Libraries. When problems or tasks like these described happen in your tape library it is good practice to run the Audit Library command.

The Audit Library Command can verify the tapes in the Library in one of  two ways.
1.By Barcode, this option verifies the barcode information and slot position and runs quickly as the Tape Library already has this information stored in its internal memory.
2.By Internal Label, every tape that TSM uses has an internal label that has been written to the start of the tape by TSM when running the label command when the tape was initially placed into the Library. Using this method causes TSM to mount every tape into a drive and verify its label. As every tape is physically mounted and read this option can be time consuming.

Which option should you use?

In a physical library it is extremely rare for the barcode label and the internal label to not match, but it can happen, so if you have the time then I would recommend using option 2, but if you don’t have a big window for your tape library to be out of action then use option 1.

If you are using a Virtual Tape Libraries and have the Relabel option set then I strongly advise running option 2 from time to time on your virtual library.

When running either variation of the Audit Library command there must be no activity happening on the Library. Run the Query Mount command and make sure there are no tapes mounted or even idle.  Cancel all processes and Sessions that are using the Drives.   Once there are no drives in use run the Audit Library
From the Admin CLI   Using barcode information only AUDIT LIBRARY LibraryName CHECKLABEL=BARCODE

Using Internal Labels AUDIT LIBRARY LibraryName CHECKLABEL=YES   Where LibraryName is the name of your Library

From TSM Studio Go to the Libraries and Volumes Category and open the Libraries Dataview

Select the Library you wish to Audit  Right Click to bring up the Command Options and select either the Audit Library ( Check Label ) or Audit Library ( Check Barcode )

In TSM Studio you can check for label mis-matches, it requires that you first run the AUDIT LIBRARY command with the CHECKLABEL=YES option then from the Main Menu Select Tools–> Check TSM Tape Labels

Choose the TSM Server and Library and then hit the Refresh Button   Use the View drop down to show you the mis-matched tape labels

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We suggest you read the following Article on Collocation before reading this Article –> Read Here

As noted in the article on collocation. The main problems you will come across with collocation is running out of scratch tapes andor a large number of tapes in a filling status. The main cause of this is having a storage pool with a collocation method of Group and then having no collocation groups or nodes not in collocation groups.

Using TSM Studio go to the Trouble Shooting category and open the Nodes not in Collocation Group dataview.

To Add a Node(s) to a Group simply right click the select Add to A Group

After putting all your nodes in a group, You will now need to move the data off the current tapes so that TSM can collocate the nodes and their data.

There are a number of ways to do this and here are two of them

1. To do this use the Move Data command on each tape and move the data back to the primary disk pool so that the migration process can move the data back to tape using the collocation you specified.

2. Or use the Move Data command to move the data to the same storage pool as the tape is already in, TSM will then move the data from the selected tape and collocate the data with nodes from the same group on other tapes.

Using TSM Studio to run the move data command. Open the Volumes Dataview from the Libraries and Volumes category Right Click on the Tape and Choose Move Data

Choose the Storage Pool to move the data to

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Firstly for the TSM Instance to be able to capture information about restored files the following option must be enabled in the dsmserv.opt and the TSM instance restarted

REPORTRETRIEVE   Yes

Then in TSM Studio you can use the Client Node–>Show Restored Files dataview to show restored file for a given date rangle

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In most of the TSM Studio dataviews there is an option to Export data to XML

This XML can be loaded back into TSM Studio at any time without having a connection to a TSM Server using the Tools–>Load Dataview from XML Option

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If SQL Server is running on the same Server as the TSM Studio Server service then we recommend 12GB of memory as a minimum to ensure the healthy running on TSM Studio Server.

By default SQL Server will be configured to use all available memory this will need to be changed so that there is enough free memory for  TSM Studio Server to function. It is recommended  that SQL Server be given 4GB of memory and the other 8GB is left available for TSM Studio Server.

To change the default memory settings in SQL Server. Start up SQL Server Management Server right click on the server and select properties

Select Memory and then enter 4096 into the Maximum server memory field

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In TSM Studio Server 2.9.011 and above there are a number of added enhancements to help tune TSM Studio for you environment.

The first area to check is on the Concurrency Tab of the TSM Studio Server properties dialog which can be accessed from Configuration–>Properties as shown here



 

The main setting to check here are Concurrent Reports and Concurrent Collector Threads. Report creation can consume large amount of memory so it is recommended to keep this number low.



Also some of the collections can consume a large amount of transaction log space especially the activity log collector.  Each collector  can be individually tuned.  Goto Configuration->Collection schedules and edit the Activity Log collector and change the Concurrent Collectors to a small number (less than 5 )



Also check out the below link for SQL Server memory settings


https://www.spiritsoftware.biz/knowledgebase/microsoft-sql-…-studio-server

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As of TSM Studio Server version 2.9.1.0 security has been tightened up and no longer stores any security information in the registry.

The default logon to TSM Studio Server is now admin with a default password of password, (Domain field should be blank otherwise TSM Studio Server will assume it is a windows userid).

We strongly advise changing the admin password using the following procedure.

To change the password for the inbuilt admin userid use the Security–>Change Admin Password

Security in TSM Studio Server is now defined by assigning role(s) and Windows groups to a TSM Studio Server security group.

The TSM Studio Server security system will automatically create a group named Admins that has access to all functions in TSM Studio Server, the first time it is loaded it will look for the old group definitions in the registry and load them into this group otherwise it will populate with following default groups Administrators, Domains Admins and TSMStudioAdmins.

Also two roles will be created, one called Administrators which is assigned to the Admins Server group and one called Operational Report Viewer for allowing access to the Operational Report Viewer.

To access TSM Studio Server Groups select Security–>Groups

To modify the Admins Group Double Click or select edit from the Toolbar

Add Windows Group that should have admin access to TSM Studio Server, One Group per line

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Alternate Row BackColor Example

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This will display Line Numbers as shown below

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This article describes installation and configuration of the TSM Scheduler Service on windows. The TSM Scheduler service is used by the TSM Scheduling Services to automate client node backups.

I am using the version 6 client for these examples, even though the screens look different it is still the same process for the version 5 clients

After installing the Windows Backup Archive client start the Backup-Archive GUI go to the Utilities–>Setup Wizard

Select Next

Select Next on TSM Schedule Wizard Screen

Choose Install a new or additional scheduler

Choose a Name for the Service. This the name you will in the Windows Services Manager

This is what you will see in Windows Service Manager

Choose an options file to be associated with this TSM Scheduler Service. It is possible to run multiple TSM Scheduler Service’s using different option files

Choose the node name for this TSM Service. Again it is possible to use a different node name for each TSM Scheduler Service and input the password. This node name will need to be registered on the TSM Server or the service will not start.

Choose the userid that the service will start as.  This userid will need to have access to all the files it must backup or be a member of the backup operators group in windows

Choose the location for the scheduler service log files

NOTE:  Some of these options are stored with the TSM Scheduler service and not in the options file and will override the option file settings. These values are stored in the registry at the following location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesTSM Client SchedulerParameters     (replace TSM Client Scheduler with the name you used when installing the service )

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Expiring old backup and archive data from TSM is controlled by the EXPINTERVAL in your dsmserv.opt file.

EXPINTERVAL=24  specifies to run the expire process every 24 hours.

EXPINTERVAL=0 disables automatic expiration.

Removing old data from TSM can be run manually using the expire inventory command. Data is expired using the “Management Class” definitions that you have set on your files or if none are defined then the defaults for the policy set are used.  ( I will discuss policy sets in an upcoming article )

In version 5 expiration can only be run system wide, in version 6 you can run the expire inventory command on individual nodes, this is useful when changing management classes on individual nodes.

I recommend that you set the EXPINTERVAL to 0 so that you can control at what time this process runs and the setup an admin schedule to run the expire inventory command

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We suggest you read the following Article on Collocation before reading this Article –> Read Here

As noted in the article on collocation. The main problems you will come across with collocation is running out of scratch tapes andor a large number of tapes in a filling status. The main cause of this is having a storage pool with a collocation method of Group and then having no collocation groups or nodes not in collocation groups.

Using TSM Studio go to the Trouble Shooting category and open the Nodes not in Collocation Group dataview.

To Add a Node(s) to a Group simply right click the select Add to A Group

After putting all your nodes in a group, You will now need to move the data off the current tapes so that TSM can collocate the nodes and their data.

There are a number of ways to do this and here are two of them

1. To do this use the Move Data command on each tape and move the data back to the primary disk pool so that the migration process can move the data back to tape using the collocation you specified.

2. Or use the Move Data command to move the data to the same storage pool as the tape is already in, TSM will then move the data from the selected tape and collocate the data with nodes from the same group on other tapes.

Using TSM Studio to run the move data command. Open the Volumes Dataview from the Libraries and Volumes category Right Click on the Tape and Choose Move Data

Choose the Storage Pool to move the data to

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The Administrative Client is part of the normal windows backup-archive client install but by default it is not installed. You will need to apply a custom install as shown below:

1. Start the Tivoli Storage Manager Client InstallShield(R)

2. Choose the Destination Folder

3. Choose Custom Setup as the Setup Type

4. IMPORTANT – Make sure that you select the Administrative Client Command Line Option as shown below and choose ‘ run all ‘ from my computer

5. Click the Install option

6. To verify the installation, verify the existence of dsmadmc.exe in the C:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient directory

You may come across an error if the paths are not correctly set up. If you see the following message when starting the administrative cli program or when testing a TSM Server connection in TSM Studio, follow the suggested action below.

ANS0101E Unable to open English message repository ‘dscenu.txt’

This error is a result of the administrative cli  program, “dsmadmc.exe”, unable to find the message file.

To start, you can check if the dscenu.txt file exists in the c:program filestivolitsmbaclient directory ( assuming, you installed the TSM client in the default location ).   

If the file exists, try adding the following environment variable   

DSM_DIR=C:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient

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All the articles that I have written are from my own personal experiences using TSM for the past 15+ years. TSM is a diverse product that can be setup and deployed in many ways. Before using any of the methods in the articles, ensure that you use due diligence to test that all steps will work as described in your environment.

If you have comments, like help with the contents in one of the articles or would like to see an article on a particular TSM topic please send me an email at gelliott@spiritsoftware.biz. You are welcome to use these articles on your own sites as long as you have a link on the article back to this site

Example:  Written by Spirit Software Solutions

Graeme Elliott CEO,
Founder and Chief Architect
Spirit Software Solutions

All Articles are copyrighted by Spirit Software Solutions

*** LEGAL STUFF ***

Direct, incidental, consequential, indirect, or punitive damages arising out of your access to, or use of, the site and articles within. Without limiting the foregoing, everything on the site is provided to you ‘AS IS’ WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON INFRINGEMENT. “Please note that some jurisdictions may not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you. Check your local laws for any restrictions or limitations regarding the exclusion of implied warranties.”

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TSM v5

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM NODES WHERE PLATFORM_NAME LIKE ‘WIN%’

TSM v6 and above

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM NODESVIEW WHERE PLATFORM_NAME LIKE ‘WIN%’

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SELECT * FROM VOLUMES WHERE WRITE_ERRORS>5     (Use a number relevant for your environment, this should be 0 if using a VTL)

NOTE: The > symbol when using the TSM Admin CLI is also used for redirection. To ensure it is used for correct intention here as a GREATER THAN sign remove the spaces on either side of the > symbol

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TSM v5

SELECT NODE_NAME, FILESPACE_NAME from FILESPACE  WHERE BACKUP_END IS NULL OR BACKUP_END < BACKUP_START

TSMv6

SELECT NODE_NAME, FILESPACE_NAME from FILESPACEVIEW  WHERE BACKUP_END IS NULL OR BACKUP_END < BACKUP_START

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SELECT * FROM VOLUMES WHERE READ_ERRORS>5     (Use a number relevant for your environment, this should be 0 if using a VTL)

NOTE: The > symbol when using the TSM Admin CLI is also used for redirection. To ensure it is used for correct intention here as a GREATER THAN sign remove the spaces on either side of the > symbol

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TSM v5

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM NODES WHERE PLATFORM_NAME LIKE ‘%DP%’

TSMv6 and above

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM NODESVIEW WHERE PLATFORM_NAME LIKE ‘%DP%’

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