Tivoli® Storage Manager uses policy to store and manage data objects on various types of storage devices and media.
Figure 1 shows how a policy is part of the Tivoli Storage Manager data management process.
- A client is associated with a policy domain.
When a client node is registered, it is associated with a policy domain, which contains one active policy set. When a client backs up, archives, or migrates a file, the file is bound to a management class in the active policy set of the policy domain. The management class and the backup and archive copy groups that it contains specify where files are stored and how they are managed.
- Client data is sent to the server.
Based on information in the management class, the client sends the file and file information to the server. The information that is sent depends on the client operation that was performed.
- The server determines where and how to store the client data.
The server checks the management class that is bound to the file to determine the destination storage pool where the file should be stored. The storage pool can be a group of disk volumes, or tape volumes. For backed-up and archived files, the destination is specified in the backup and archive copy groups within management classes. For space-managed files, the destination is specified directly in the management class.
- The client data is stored.
The server stores the file in the storage pool that is identified as the storage destination and saves information in its database about each file that it backs up, archives, or migrates. The management class that the file is bound to specifies how long the data is stored and whether it is migrated or expired.
- Optional: The client data is migrated.
If you set up server storage in a hierarchy, you can optionally have Tivoli Storage Manager migrate files to different storage pools. For example, you might want to set up server storage so that Tivoli Storage Manager migrates files from a disk storage pool to tape volumes in a tape storage pool.