RE: Final word on TSM and V5R4 of i5/os

<snip>
Ah, such a crock.  So besides Mark Shearer who else can we complain to?
To be honest, this is enough of an issue where despite having paid for
this software I might not use it.
</snip>

You might start by using the COMMON Advisory Committee.  This is a 
committee set up by IBM and Mr. Shearer's direction to take issues just 
like this one up, categorize, prioritize,  present, and then advocate 
items getting onto the plan with IBM.  It is the replacement for the old 
requirements process that used to be very important at COMMON. 

This is a legitimate question for the Town Hall meeting as well if you 
happen to be in MSP for COMMON next week. 

As a matter of note, this has been well known for the better part of a 
year now.  While I would personally support the continuation of the 
product under PASE, I understand why the decision was made to concentrate 
on three servers, AIX, Linux, and Windows.  PASE is just enough different, 
particularly in the device support from AIX that TSM became a problem to 
maintain. 

The main problem I have with the partition running Linux is not that it is 
hard, it is not. Since it can be run in a fully hosted environment, it 
uses the same storage, tape, etc.  It is only a performance issue with 
getting the LPARs tuned to be sure the TSM server is running at optimum 
without taking too much away from the other partitions.  I would also 
recommend using a dedicated IOA for the tape connection in the Linux 
partition.  The use of uncapped and tuned partitions start to take away 
the performance issues.

In terms of total horsepower to run the Linux version and the PASE 
version, we have not seen a difference in the Business Partner Innovation 
Center (BPIC) we maintain at Computech Resources.  I would not be afraid 
of jumping into the Linux version.  Very little Linux skill is needed to 
run TSM once it is set up.  Most of the action takes place in the TSM 
screens anyway.    We have customers in both environments (PASE and Linux) 
and I have seen both be very successful. 

Jim Oberholtzer
Senior Technical Architect
Computech Resources, Inc.