IBM TSM : How to automate some administrative tasks

Use administrative schedules!

On the dsmadmc command line run (for example):

DEF SCHED BKUP_NDISKPOOLF T=A CMD="BACKUP STGP NTDISKPOOLF COPY_POOL" STARTTIME=06:00:00 PERIOD=1 PERUNITS=DAYS DAYOFWEEK=ANY DESC="Backup Storage Pool NDISKPOOLF to COPY_POOL"

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DEF SCHED EXP_INVENTORY T=A CMD="EXPIRE INVENTORY QUIET=YES" STARTTIME=07:00:00 PERIOD=1 PERUNITS=DAYS DAYOFWEEK=ANY DESC="Start Inventory Expiration"

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DEF SCHED RECL_NDISKPOOLF T=A CMD="RECLAIM STGP NDISKPOOLF" STARTTIME=08:00:00 PERIOD=1 PERUNITS=DAYS DAYOFWEEK=ANY DESC="Reclaim Storage Pool NDISKPOOLF"

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The above commands define standard type schedules. There is also an enhanced schedule style which allows for specifying a month (Jan, Feb, Mar,...,Dec), a week of month (first, second, ..., last) and a day of month (1,2,3,...31)  instead of a period and a period unit. To define an enhanced-style schedule add "SCHEDSTYLE=ENHANCED" (or "SCHEDS=E") to the definition. Please run "HELP DEF SCHED" for more detail.

To avoid overlapping of the three processes you can add the commands (BACKUP ..., EXPIRE ..., RECLAIM ...)  to a TSM script (don't forget WAIT=YES) and define a single schedule with CMD="RUN scriptname".
If you're interested in creating TSM scripts please let me know.

To make it complete - here is how to create a script and integrate it into an admin schedule:

DEF SCR BKUP_EXP_RECL desc="Backup Stgpool, Expire inventory and Reclaim Stgpool"
UPD SCR BKUP_EXP_RECL "BACKUP STGP NTDISKPOOLF COPY_POOL WAIT=YES" line=10
UPD SCR BKUP_EXP_RECL "EXPIRE INVENTORY QUIET=YES WAIT=YES" line=20
UPD SCR BKUP_EXP_RECL "RECLAIM STGP NDISKPOOLF WAIT=YES" line=30

DEF SCHED BKUP_EXP_RECL T=A CMD="RUN BKUP_EXP_RECL" STARTTIME=06:00:00 PERIOD=1 PERUNITS=DAYS DAYOFWEEK=ANY DESC="Backup Storage Pool NDISKPOOLF, Expire Inventory, Reclaim Storage Pool NDISKPOOLF"

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thats great , thanx a lot .

Is it possible for me to add it to the maintenance script via command line?

I don't know your maintenance script. What does it do? Is it a regular TSM script?

If so, you can display it on the dsmadmc command line with

Q SCR scriptname F=L

If you could post the outcome I could check what we can do.

Hello Woolmilkporc,

I don't have access to the "maintenance script" via the GUI, its not working since the upgrade of tsm server to version 7.0 . I will try to download the fix.

This is why i am trying to edit the script via the command line

It seems that the name of the maintenance script is MAINTENANCE_PLAN_CUSTOM


The output of the command Q SCR scriptname F=L doesn't show result.

Q SCR MAINTENANCE_PLAN_CUSTOM F=L

of course ...

ok this command works. I see that the script name is maintenance_plan_custom

It seems that this script doesn't do anything!
What is it supposed to do?

Is it scheduled?

Run this to check:

select SCHEDULE_NAME, STARTTIME, COMMAND from admin_schedules where upper(COMMAND) like '%MAINTENANCE%'

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Any result?

I don't really know what it's supposed to do because i don't have access to the maintenance tab on the GUI.


output of the command

OK, this empty script runs at 17:28, probably daily. Very strange.

Adding our three commands to it will be quite simple. Shall we do it?

yes we should definately add the commands ,
waiting for the commands

wow it went great!!! Thanx  a lot boss

Just one more question, is it possible to change the date of the maintenance script planification?  I would like to plan this script every morning at 6am.

Is it possible to run it twice a day?

Changing the start time of a schedule is easy, but running it twice a day is only possible
if the difference between the start times is exactly 12 hours
(otherwise the start time would "wander" through the day).
That's because only one "start time" can ce specified.

1) Change the start time to 6am:

UPD SCHED MAINTENANCE T=A STARTTIME=06:00:00 DAYOFWEEK=ANY

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2) Change the start times to 6am and 6pm:

UPD SCHED MAINTENANCE T=A STARTTIME=06:00:00 PERIOD=12 PERUNITS=HOURS DAYOFWEEK=ANY

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The latter is very uncommon in TSM, but it will work.

If the script must run twice a day with a time difference other than 12 hours we'll have to define another admin schedule to achieve this. That's not a big thing, though.

thanx a lot to woolmilkporc, he is a real tsm expert!