Managing IBM Tivoli Storage Manager › Managing TSM

Managing TSM

CA SRM integrates the following functions to manage TSM:

Data collection

CA SRM, using an ODBC driver supplied by IBM, communicates with the TSM Server to obtain information about TSM nodes, sessions, schedules, storage pools, drives, libraries, volumes, and server processes, and scans the log files on all TSM servers. The CA SRM TSM Registration Wizard lets you specify how often you want the data collection service to be run. You can modify this by accessing the Object Tree and navigating to the following location:

Open Systems/Backup Products/TSM/Servers/Configuration/Modify

The TSM data collection agent now operates under the BOS/AGE framework which is product and platform agnostic. The improved porting of the TSM agent provides this additional registration wizard functionality:

Discovery of TSM servers based on existing data sources targeted to TSM servers.

• Definition of new data sources for TSM servers.
• Validation of the user provided TSM access parameters.

Data filtering, analysis, and calculation

CA SRM can perform extensive statistical operations on the data extracted from logs.

Viewing and reporting

CA SRM’s flexible presentation facilities let you display information-rich summaries on screen, output them as printed reports, or export them for post-processing.

Performance monitoring and capacity planning

CA SRM lets you use query and reporting facilities to obtain performance information about TSM nodes and to plan future capacity based on an analysis of current trends.

The TSM Messages Scanner Service

CA SRM scans TSM servers for client and server-related messages. The TSM Messages Scanner Service can turn your display into a TSM command and control center that shows you all conditions of interest, with the organization and color alerts you specify. A single installation of CA SRM can handle several TSM servers. The system also addresses errors and conditions to which you want to respond with automatic actions.

The service collects client- and server-related messages in the following manner:

• Client Messages—CA SRM scans TSM logs for ANE‑style messages and displays the information according to user-defined criteria. The service scans the Activity Log table of a TSM server database within a requested time range and creates a Result file when attention is selected.

  You can also use the CA SRM attentions mechanism to propagate the scanning results.

  CA SRM stores the resulting data in several objects, each one subject to its own filtering and post-processing:

  The Result file contains log records that match user-defined criteria.

  The Attentions section defines attentions, which CA SRM creates and issues during processing. CA SRM issues attentions automatically when it tests user-defined conditions in log records and finds them to be true.

  The Messages section defines patterns to which users have assigned severity levels. CA SRM tabulates these by severity.

• Server Messages—CA SRM scans the Activity log of the TSM servers for ANR-style messages and accumulates event information in Result files. The service can also generate attentions to notify users about potential problems on the TSM server, and set severity indicators on the TSM server object.

  Note: When you select Scan Events by List in the Server Messages Scanner service and enter a message number for an Informational Message, or select 'Information and Higher' from the Severity list, you must also have a corresponding statement in the [Activity Log Patterns] section of the Server-Pattern File to collect Informational Messages.

CA SRM also supports the following TSM functions:

Retrieving data from the TSM Server

You can use CA SRM tables to browse information retrieved from the TSM Server and organized into CA SRM objects.

Viewing, extracting, and processing information from the TSM log files

You can perform the following using a single CA SRM command:

• Retrieve all the lines that TSM has added to the Activity Log file since the previous midnight.
• Extract lines for selected time periods from the Activity Log file and save the extracted lines in a file, which you can then use for viewing or post‑processing.
• Scan the Activity Log file automatically and issue attentions when it encounters certain text patterns.

You can form a TSM console by combining CA SRM data calculation, presentation, and messaging facilities, with the information collected from the TSM Server and log files. This reveals at a glance the events that require operator attention. Use the CA SRM analysis tools to process that same data to monitor performance and obtain capacity planning information.