Fact Sheet


DAN ("DINO Analyses for Networker") is a state-of-the-art, automated 'health' checking tool for Networker. It replaces slow, cumbersome and often unreliable manual inspections that are normally undertaken by consultants using checklists. Now it's possible to automatically check various configurations and be prompted with intelligent suggestions for things such as changing the multiplexing value, adding additional tape pools or changing the backups to go to disk. Hundreds of hours of manual diagnosis are effectively reduced to minutes.


New rules for a changing world

A backup in the mainframe world is usually a simple matter of one disk going to one tape . . but its very different in the open systems world. In this complex environment products typically send data over the LAN to the backup server. The server owns the tapes and writes the data out. However, since the disks typically do not occupy full tapes . . and because the data coming from the client computers don't always supply the tapes with enough data to keep the tapes moving . . the backup products often allow several different versions of multiplexing in order to keep enough data in the pipeline to keep the tapes moving. Multiple bursts of data may be coming from each client computer and several client computers can be supplying the backup server. Data on the tape may be multiple files from multiple computers, and they are ALL INTERSPERSED on the tapes. They have Full, Incremental, Differential, and Consolidated backups so that a full backup taken on Saturday cannot be released until all dependent backups ("subsequent incrementals") have expired. A simple thing like changing the expiration date of a backup can prevent an entire chain of backups from being released.


Complex environment, complex problems

Users can also backup to disk, stop and start applications before and after backup, compress files, perform archiving, allow for tape pool overlap, include additional data (like including 1 file from a directory other than the 1 being backed up), set up storage nodes so that additional servers can own tape drives but the database is maintained by a central node, allow NDMP device to go directly to tape, take snapshots before backup, backup the disk backup to tape at high watermark levels(called staging)etc, so it can be a very complicated environment that can get out of hand quickly. DAN gives clear understanding for optimum utilization of current assets


DAN gives users the ability to:

  1. See what Save Sets are being backed up on every computer
    This is helpful to see what is being backed up on each CPU and allows the various server administrators and verify if it is still valid. The backup environment can then be cleaned up by eliminating some backups or perhaps adding others. Often backups setup in the past are no longer needed and this is a good way to identify that condition. It also illustrates what is not being backed up on a server that should be getting backed up. Another related DAN report shows the number of days since that backup was last run so you can eliminate definitions from your Networker database.
    Million dollar savings
  2. Generate reports showing the structure of every backup tape in volser order
    With the click of a button, highlight the save sets on a tape that are preventing that tape from being released. This critical problem often occurs when someone changes the save set browse or retention date . . but doesn't change the tape pool. Suddenly daily, or weekly tapes are not turning over because 1 save set may be on a tape with a 7 year hold. Users have no way of knowing about it except through expert assistance who must use complex tools and the right commands to identify the condition. This was a 1.2 million dollar problem at 1 bank and is easily identified with DAN.