Each component of IBM Tivoli Storage Manager has its system & Software requirements. Below I am bringing your attention to the requirements of each component. Please visit IBM website for the latest requirements for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Components as its an always updated document.

System Requirement & Supported Platforms for IBM Tivoli TSM Server

IBM TSM Server System Requirements:

IBM Tivoli Storage manager Server requirements are specific to the operating system & architect it will run on. Below are the requirements for the most commonly used platforms.

OK, OK, you had just received your IBM Tivoli Storage Manager 5.5 CDs. I can guess, ah you are asking what are you going to do with all these CDs. Guess what!! You might only need 3 of them, or might need all of them depending on the enviornment you have. IBM tend to ship you all the CDs at once, and leave it up to you to use what you have licensed. Below is the list of CDs you should recieve with your IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Package.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Server

• Operational Reporting
• Administration Center
• Linux Server
• HP-UX Server
• Solaris Server
• Windows Server
• AIX Server

Finally Day two is ready to be published. I know quite few readers were waiting for it. The surprise we have promised about that our tutorial from Day 3 on will include videos of the steps we used in the installation and configuration. We are sorry that the video quality is not too high & does not include sound, but that is how much efforts our team is able to handle at the moment. We are considering to release a new set of video & re-clean up the whole tutorial after finishing it. So stay tuned.

VMware VMs image level backup using TSM was not straight forward process till TSM 5.5. Up to version 5.4, you needed to run into all kind of pre & post backup scripts to backup your virtual machines using VCB & TSM. Integrating TSM & VCB was a hassle, & most companies were running after third party solutions to intermediate the integration (ex: vRanger, ESXpress, & so on). In TSM 5.5, the situation got a lot better as IBM introduced the backup vm command which canceled the need for the nasty post & pre-script commands. Though till TSM 6.0 there was no GUI for backing up virtual machines using VCB in TSM. The good news in TSM 6.0 the integration of TSM & VCB has got to be quite easy and effective. In addition, for all of you out there who is not ready to upgrade just yet I have a very good news for you. The good news is that you can use the TSM 6.0 client with your old 5.4 & 5.5 and even maybe older version of TSM, so you don’t have to upgrade your TSM Server to get the benefit of the new TSM Client features. The example below in fact is using IBM TSM 6.0 client with TSM Server 5.5.

Backing up virutal machines running on VMware ESX as images is a rising trend. As ESXRanger is one of the leading software in backing up ESX VMs as images, I have decided to cover the best practices for ESXRanger Quiescing & VSS setting when backing up virtual machines. There is many cautions that you need to follow specially when backing up database virtual machines as images to get consistent images.

Before reinventing the wheel I searched around to see how good is the coverage of this topic over the internet, I found the below guide written by the VirtualizationTeam.com with a great coverage of the topic. I thought it will be very useful to share it with my readers, as plenty of TSM users have purchased vRanger & integrated it with their TSM Solution, to get an easier way to backup VMs. I thought I will spread the guide, before you fall in the pitfall of not following best practices when doing VMs backup. Below is the guide: