IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager is an enterprise-wide storage management application. It provides automated storage management services to workstations, personal computers, and file servers from various vendors, with various operating systems.
- Server
-
- Server program
- The server program provides backup, archive, and space management
services to the clients.
You can set up multiple servers in your enterprise network to balance storage, processor, and network resources.
- Administrative interface
- The administrative interface allows administrators to control
and monitor server activities, define management policies for clients,
and set up schedules to provide services to clients at regular intervals.
Administrative interfaces include a command-line administrative client and a web-based interface that is called the Operations Center. With Tivoli Storage Manager you can manage and control multiple servers from a single interface that runs in a web browser.
- Server database and recovery log
- The Tivoli Storage Manager server uses a database to track information about server storage, clients, client data, policy, and schedules. The server uses the recovery log as a scratch pad for the database, recording information about client and server actions while the actions are being performed.
- Server storage
- The server can write data to hard disk drives, disk arrays and
subsystems, stand-alone tape drives, tape libraries, and other forms
of random-access and sequential-access storage. The media that the
server uses are grouped into storage pools.
The storage devices can be connected directly to the server, or connected through a local area network (LAN) or a storage area network (SAN).
- Client Nodes
- A client node can be a workstation, a personal computer, a file
server, or even another Tivoli Storage
Manager server.
The client node has IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client
software that is installed and is registered with the server.
Network-attached storage (NAS) file servers can also be client nodes, but when you use NDMP, they do not have Tivoli Storage Manager client software installed.
- Backup-archive client
- The
backup-archive client allows users to maintain backup versions of
files, which they can restore if the original files are lost or damaged.
Users can also archive files for long-term storage and retrieve the
archived files when necessary. Users themselves or administrators
can register workstations and file servers as client nodes with a Tivoli Storage
Manager server.
The storage agent is an optional component that can also be installed on the same system as the client node. The storage agent enables LAN-free data movement for client operations and is supported on a number of operating systems.
- Network-attached storage file server (by using NDMP)
- The server can use the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) to back up and restore file systems that are stored on a network-attached storage (NAS) file server. The data on the NAS file server is backed up to a tape library. The Tivoli Storage Manager software does not need to be installed on the NAS file server. A NAS file server can also be backed up over the LAN to a Tivoli Storage Manager server. For more information, including details about supported NAS file servers, see Using NDMP for operations with NAS file servers.
- Application client
- Application clients allow users to
initiate online backups of data for applications such as database
programs. After the application program initiates a backup or restore,
the application client acts as the interface to Tivoli Storage
Manager. The Tivoli Storage
Manager server then
applies its storage management functions to the data. The application
client can initiate its functions while application users are working,
with minimal disruption. The following products provide application clients for use with the Tivoli Storage Manager server:
- Tivoli Storage Manager for Databases
- Tivoli Storage Manager for Enterprise Resource Planning
- Tivoli Storage Manager for Mail
- Application programming interface (API)
- The API can help you to enhance existing applications to use the backup, archive, restore, and retrieve services that Tivoli Storage Manager provides. Tivoli Storage Manager API clients can register as client nodes with a Tivoli Storage Manager server.
- Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management
- Tivoli Storage
Manager for Space Management provides
space management services for workstations on some operating systems.
The space management function is essentially a more automated version
of archive. Tivoli Storage
Manager for Space Management automatically
migrates files that are less frequently used to server storage, freeing
space on the workstation. The migrated files are also called space-managed
files.
Users can recall space-managed files automatically by accessing them as they normally would from the workstation. Tivoli Storage Manager for Space Management is also known as the space manager client, or the hierarchical storage management (HSM) client.
HSM for Windows- The Tivoli Storage
Manager for
HSM for Windows client provides
hierarchical storage management (HSM) for Windows NTFS file systems. HSM is a data
storage system that automatically moves data between high-cost and
low-cost storage media.
High-speed storage devices are more expensive per byte stored than slower devices, such as magnetic tape drives. While it would be ideal to have all data available on high-speed devices all the time, this is prohibitively expensive for many organizations. HSM is available to store data on slower devices, and then copy data to faster disk drives only when needed.
For information about supported operating systems for clients, see the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager website at http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/Overview/Software/Tivoli/Tivoli_Storage_Manager.
Client programs, such as the backup-archive client and the HSM client (space manager), are installed on systems that are connected through a LAN and that are registered as client nodes. From these client nodes, users can back up, archive, or migrate files to the server.
The following sections present key concepts and information about IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. The sections describe how Tivoli Storage Manager manages client files that are based on information that is provided in administrator-defined policies, and manages devices and media that are based on information that is provided in administrator-defined Tivoli Storage Manager storage objects.
The final section gives an overview of tasks for the administrator of the server, including options for configuring the server and how to maintain the server.