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 altered in anyway. This solution is a non-disruptive technology which complements TSM 2. We are suppted by another reseller, can your product still help? Yes, if the reseller is not offering a tool like the SIS Manages Services solution if service levels are not adequate. Our software alerts TSM problems to a ptal to which the customer can grant third party ( internal) access if required. 3. Does it take up bandwidth specifically TSM Server CPU netwk bandwidth? Our solution runs nmal 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 transpted 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 netwk bandwidth used will be around 10MB in a full day. 4. Will it wk with all versions of TSM? Yes. Our solution has been developed to wk with TSM 5.3 and above (Over 95% of alerts will wk with TSM 5.2). There are new features in TSM 5.3 which we utilize to extract me accurate and meaningful data from the TSM database. TSM Managed Services by SIS - FAQ Page 1 of 5
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 schedules data collection on the TSM server and then sends this data to our moniting 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 ganization. Additionally this data is encrypted befe it is sent to our SIS servers located in our secure Netwk 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 Ptal 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 Netwk 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 suppting many TSM infrastructures of varying size and complexity. So far all customers have benefited from the experience encapsulated in the solution. We think there is always room f improvement but we challenge you to prove us wrong test your system against 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 do they just alert? SIS currently runs about 150 queries and many me are in the pipeline f release 2. Additionally as our Netwk Operations fix a TSM problem f 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 ptal. Optionally the problem ticket may contain automatic self help infmation from the suppt database. Once the problem is logged as a ticket it can be viewed by any authized user within your ganization our Netwk Operations Center. TSM Managed Services by SIS - FAQ Page 2 of 5
The ptal provides f full accountability as the problem analysis and event solution are recded in the ticket histy befe 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 Repts in TSM we don t have a problem Once again this comes down to the subject of accountability 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 you need to bounce the ticket to our Netwk Operations Center the entire ticket histy remains available f all to see. This transparency is not available with custom written scripts TSM Operational repts which simply emails data to a selection of inboxes. Future versions will provide SLA repts enabling managers to view the overall perfmance of their TSM suppt providers (be that in house 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 operational issues. Upgrading can be a complex process. Why don t you try out this service pri 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 repting not alerting functionality. However it still takes time from an experienced administrat to interpret the data (and there is a lot of it!) to establish whether there is a problem 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 infmation (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 suppt from Passpt Advantage/IBM SIS provides *24 hour automated* scanning and alerting of problems with your TSM infrastructure as opposed to reactive telephone software suppt as part of your Passpt Advantage agreement with IBM. TSM Managed Services by SIS - FAQ Page 3 of 5
14. We have TSM suppt as part of a complete infrastructure suppt package, we don t want two different suppt providers Understand that you want to keep suppt simple with one point of escalation contact. Can we talk with your suppt provider about this service... it may help them to consistently meet the levels of suppt you demand. SIS alerts TSM problems to a central ptal hosted out our data center in Lexington, KY. You may grant your existing suppt provider logon to your dedicated ptal in der that they can pick up the alerts raised by SIS. If required SIS can provide a 2nd level of suppt f your TSM problems which are unable to be solved by your current suppt provider on site staff. We also have the advantage of being able to conduct & manage 3 rd party vend suppt 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 suppt 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 enfce the gold standard of TSM configuration and management in der to ensure your data is protected accding the rules and policies your business requires and best practices dictate. TSM Managed Services by SIS - FAQ Page 4 of 5
Standard MSC Netwk Operations SLO: Severity/Priity Level Response Time Suppt Coverage Example 1 Service down 30 Minutes A server application is not accessible to your users 2 Improper operation degraded perfmance Within 1 hour A server application is accessible, but not function crectly responding poly. 3 Non-critical Within 4 hours You require operational technical assistance with your hosted infrastructure, you wish to schedule a maintenance outage, need help with any other non-immediate task. 4 Low priity One Business Day 9/5 You require a basic configuration change. TSM Managed Services by SIS - FAQ Page 5 of 5