TSM Managed Services by SIS - FAQ Page 1 of 5
Managed Solution Center’s
TSM Managed Services
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Will this invalidate our IBM Warranty / Maintenance?
No. IBM warranty will not be affected as TSM code is not being modified or altered in anyway. This solution is a non-disruptive technology which complements TSM
2. We are supported by another reseller, can your product still help?
Yes, if the reseller is not offering a tool like the SIS Manages Services solution or if service levels are notadequate. Our software alerts TSM problems to a portal to which the customer can grant third party (or internal) access if required.
3. Does it take up bandwidth – specifically TSM Server CPU
or network bandwidth?
Our solution runs normal SQL queries against the TSM database throughout the day. These have been tuned to return results as fast as possible. The results of the
queries are kept to the minimum required size and are then transported to our query server via a secure and encrypted connection. The largest query on
returns about 1K of data so the maximum of amount of network bandwidth used will be around 10MB in a full day.
4. Will it work with all versions of TSM?
Yes. Our solution has been developed to work with TSM 5.3 and above (Over 95% of alerts will work with TSM 5.2). There are new features in TSM 5.3
which we utilize to extract more accurate and meaningful data from the TSM database.
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5. Does it need any dedicated hardware?
The agent software needs to be installed on a customer supplied Windows 2003 server (Optional SIS supplied server negotiable). It can run as a virtual machine. This can be the TSM server if it runs on Windows 2003. If a dedicated server is required it does not need to be of a high specification. The agent schedulesdata collection on the TSM server and then sends this data to our monitoring server. The agent has a minimal CPU impact on the host server.
6. Is there a security risk?
No. Only metadata is gathered from the TSM server which cannot be used to identify any organization. Additionally this data is encrypted before it is sent to our SIS
servers located in our secure Network Operations – at the SIS Managed Solution Center.
7. Can I use this in conjunction with my PMS (problem management system)
e.g. HP Openview, Tivoli, Remedy etc?
Currently SIS uses its own Problem Management System accessible via our Portal website. There are no links to write traps to other PMS systems, this could
be done as part of the transition process. SIS in some cases can send traps to a customer PMS –please discuss with one of Network Engineers via your sales engineer.
8. We have no issues with our TSM system, everything is ok?
The SIS Managed TSM Service is based upon lessons learnt from supporting many TSM infrastructuresof varying size and complexity. So far all customers have benefited from the experience encapsulated in the solution. We think there is always room for improvement but we challenge you to prove us wrong or test your systemagainst THE benchmark!
9. We use our own scripts to help us alert on TSM issues
Great, how many scripts do you run? Who has knowledge of these scripts? What, specifically so these scripts do….i.e. do they run any further checks or do they just alert?
SIS currently runs about 150 queries and many more are in the pipeline for release 2. Additionally as our Network Operations fix a TSM problem for a customer we add the analysis and resolution to our development
schedule.
SIS’s TSM Managed Services is not only a “bunch of scripts” however. It automatically filters data based upon custom thresholds and raises tickets on the portal. Optionally the problem ticket may contain automatic “self help” information from the
support database. Once the problem is logged as a ticket it can be viewed by any authorized user within your organization or our Network Operations Center.
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The portal provides for full accountability as the problem analysis and event solution are recorded in the ticket history before it is closed. If the ticket is closed and the problem is not fixed then it is reopened upon next run of the alert.
In summary the combination of automated alerts and central ticket system ensures the problem has to be fixed.
10. Ever since we started to use Operational Reports in TSM we don’t
have a problem
Once again this comes down to the subject of accountability or transparency. As discussed above one of the benefits is the combination of automated alerting and central ticket system. No matter whether you are too busy, you go on holiday or you need to “bounce” the ticket to our Network Operations Center the entire ticket history remains available for all to see. This transparency is not available with custom written scripts or TSM Operational reports which simply emails data to a selection of inboxes.
Future versions will provide SLA reports enabling managers to view the
overall performance of their TSM support providers (be that in house or third-party).
11. We want to wait until after upgrading to TSM vx.x – we think this
will solve the issues
Upgrading TSM has never been known to fix miss-configuration or operational issues. Upgrading can be a complex process. Why don’t you try out this service prior to the upgrade. It will help de-risk the upgrade project.
12. We have just/about to bought a 3rd party tool called Aptare/
TSM Manager/Servergraph
These tools provide great reporting not alerting functionality. However it still takes time from an experienced administrator to interpret the data (and there is a lot of it!) to establish whether there is a problem or not. Once again these tools do not
provide the transparency and accountability that our solution does. In addition they do not provide any “self help” information (optional) from a database of known fixes to issues. These tools can help to diagnose problems alerted by SIS and help
you to predict future hardware and capital expenditure.
13. We are happy with the current support from Passport Advantage/IBM
SIS provides *24 hour automated* scanning and alerting of problems with your TSM infrastructure as opposed to reactive telephone software support as part of your Passport Advantage agreement with IBM.
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14. We have TSM support as part of a complete infrastructure support package,
we don’t want two different support providers
Understand that you want to keep support simple with one point of escalation contact. Can we talk with your support provider about this service... it may help them to consistently meet the levels of support you demand.
SIS alerts TSM problems to a central portal hosted out our data center in
Lexington, KY. You may grant your existing support provider logon to your dedicated portal in order that they can pick up the alerts raised by SIS. If required SIS
can provide a 2nd level of support for your TSM problems which are unable to be solved by your current support provider or on site staff. We also have the advantage of being able to conduct & manage 3rd party vendor support as well, should you require that.
15. We are about to replace TSM with something else
a. Why? No customer who uses our TSM Managed Services tool would replace TSM. It offers the most complete data protection package on the market today. Can we send you some case studies?
b. TSM is an IBM Data Protection product which has been proven to provide enterprise class backup and recovery from the desktop to the data center. From our support experience however it is often badly configured and badly managed which results in dissatisfaction with the product as a whole. This solution has been developed to enforce the “gold standard” of TSM configuration
and management in order to ensure your data is protected according the rules and policies your business requires and best practices dictate.
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Standard MSC Network Operations SLO:
Severity/Priority Level Response Time Support Coverage Example 1
Service down 30 Minutes
9a-5p or 24/7
A server or application is not accessible to your users
2 Improper operation or degraded performance Within 1 hour 9a-5p or 24/7
A server or application is accessible, but not function correctly or
responding poorly.
3
Non-critical Within 4 hours
9a-5p or 24/7
You require operational or technical assistance with your hosted
infrastructure, you wish to schedule a maintenance outage, or need help with any other non-immediate task.
4
Low priority One Business
Day
9/5
You require a basic configuration change.
