Overview of administration tasks

To complete administration tasks for an IBM Spectrum® Protect storage solution, review the available documentation.

About this task

Tip: Beginning with IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager Version 7.1.3, the Administrator's Guide topics are no longer available in PDF format. Instead, the documentation set is revised to help you complete specific tasks:
  • To deploy a new IBM Spectrum Protect storage solution, see Deploying an IBM Spectrum Protect solution. The solution guides provide cookbook-style instructions to help you plan, implement, and manage a solution.
  • Alternatively, you can use the IBM Spectrum Protect Blueprints. You can follow the Blueprint procedures to deploy a storage environment, and use the Blueprint scripts to streamline the installation and configuration process. The Blueprints provide detailed hardware and software requirements for small, medium, and large storage environments.
  • To administer an existing IBM Spectrum Protect solution, see the following table.

Action Details Documentation
Configure the server.
  • Secure the IBM Spectrum Protect server and data by controlling access to servers and client nodes, encrypting data, and maintaining secure access levels and passwords.
  • You can replicate client data from a source server to another server to help ensure that backed-up client data is available for recovery if the source server is damaged.
  • You can configure the IBM Spectrum Protect server for clustering on IBM AIX®, Linux®, or Windows systems.
Protect clients. The server protects data for clients, which can include applications, virtual machines, systems, and object clients. For example, when you register IBM Spectrum Protect Plus as an object client, you can copy data from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to IBM Spectrum Protect.
Select and configure storage. Select storage based on your business needs and then complete the tasks for configuration.
Eliminate duplicate data. Use data deduplication to eliminate redundant data in storage pools. Data deduplication reduces the storage that is required to retain the data. Only one instance of the data is retained in a deduplicated storage pool. To learn about the differences between inline and post-process data deduplication and to configure the best practice solution for data deduplication, see Data deduplication options.
Monitor a storage solution. Monitor the storage solution to identify issues, troubleshoot problems, and optimize system performance. The Operations Center Overviews page provides an overview of system status and issues alerts about potential issues, including ransomware.
Manage operations.
  • You can start and stop the server, manage inventory capacity, and manage memory and processor usage.
  • You can modify the scope of a client backup, evaluate errors, and decommission a client node when it is no longer necessary.
  • You can use the Operations Center to monitor multiple servers and to complete some administrative tasks.
Manage the database and recovery log. The database and recovery log, or server inventory, store information about client data and are critical to the operation of the server.
Configure virtual tape libraries. A virtual tape library (VTL) does not use physical tape media. When you implement VTL storage, you can exceed the capacity of a physical tape library. The ability to define many volumes and drives can provide greater flexibility for the storage environment.
Protect NAS file servers. You can plan, configure, and manage a backup environment that protects your network-attached storage (NAS) file server.
Protect data with the NetApp SnapLock licensed feature. You can use the NetApp SnapLock licensed feature to meet strict regulatory requirements for archived data.
Protect the server and data, and recover in a disaster. Protect your system infrastructure and data so that you can recover from a disaster. Use the tools and procedures that IBM Spectrum Protect provides to help you create a disaster plan. For information about protecting and recovering the server and data, see: