The biggest single change is the conversion of the database to DB2, or UDB as it is often called these days. This is a packaged DB2 version that does not need any maintenance by your DBAs. The DB2 database permits the following
Online reorgs - the ability to reorganise the database without needing to stop the TSM service
Better database integrity checking with the ability to repair database problems online
Bigger TSM databases, so fewer servers
Bigger recovery logs, up to 256 GB with the ability to do roll-foward recovery
Upgrading to TSM 6.1 is disruptive. New disk capacity has to be provided for the DB2 database, and the old database 'prepared' before moving it to DB2. Once the preparation starts, the old database is unusable, and so has to be recovered from backup if there are any problems.
The change to DB2 means the end of several old database commands like extend log and extend DB, and we will need to learn some new commands instead
Other features in TSM 6 are
Data de-duplication
The ability to interface with external security products
Improved auditing and reporting facilities
The ability to move data and metadata between TSM servers, so simplifying load balancing
The EXPIRE INVENTORY command will be granular, so you can expire by node or node groups, policy domain or by data type
The ability to concurrently copy data between storage pools while migrating to the next pool in the heirarchy, that is, concurrent migration and storage pool backup
