I hear a few rumors about might appear in TSM 6.1 This data comes from the original Lascon site

The biggest single change will the conversion of the database to DB2, or UDB as it is often called these days. This will be a packaged DB2 version that will not need any maintenance by your DBAs. The DB2 database will permit 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

The upgrade will be disruptive as the database will have to be rebuilt. It will also mean the end of several old database commands like extend log and extend DB, and we will need to learn some new commands instead

Other potential 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

However, this is all speculation. It would be nice if someone could supply a definitive list of features

Managed to dig out a little more information on this.

Changes to the TSM Administration Center mainly evolve around making it lighter on the CPU, and faster.
The Admin Center will give you the ability to view all your client nodes over all your TSM servers from a single "All Nodes" page. It will also give you a 'Create Like' option for creating a new node, that just needs the node name and password. All other fields will be cloned from an existing node.

In a similar way, you will be able to manage all your TSM servers from a single panel.

As before, none of this has been definitley confirmed with IBM

More TSM 6.1 features

Note that IBM are calling the new release 6.1 Is that an attempt to avoid the stigmata associated with an x.0 product?

DB2 databases will permit automatic database backups and access to the full set of SQL commands.

Admin Center enhancements include better help facilities and pre-prepared maintenance plans as follows
Plan 1 - database backup, migration, expire inventory, reclaim tapes
Plan 2 - as above plus storage pool backups and active data copy
Plan 3 - As plan 2 plus Disaster Recovery plan preparation

The Admin Center will also include some scripting widgets that will create a script to
Backup a database
Backup a storage pool
Copy active data into active pool
Migrate storage pool data
Reclaim space from either primary or copy storage pools
Create a recovery plan
Delete volume history
Delete expired data
Move DR media

Introduction of Data De-duplication
TSM deduplication will be server side or post de-dup., which means it does not require any changes to the clients, and has no impact on the backup window. Doing the de-dup. at the server side also means that there is a potential to de-dup. older legacy data.
In general, all data will be backed up to a file based pool as normal. The data is then split into chunks and each chunk is hashed to give it an identifier. If that hash key already exists, this indicates that duplicate data exists, so the chunk is discarded and an index created that allows the chunk to be recovered from the duplicate. De-dup. data has to live on disk pool storage. If it is copied or migrated to tape then the duplicate copies are re-created.

De-duplication requires some new parameters,
On a storage pool DEFINE or UPDATE, DEDUP=No or YES appears, along with IDENTIFYPROCESS=nn. This last parameter defines the maximum number of de-dup. processes to run in the background.
There is also a new server option, DEDUPREQUIRESBACKUP that defaults to YES but can be set to NO. Basically, this means that the disk pool cannot be reclaimed until it has been backed up for safety.

Performance improvements

This will exploit the DB2 capabilities of the database. The old database needed two passes to get the information needed for a restore, while the 6.1 database can get that information in a single pass.

If the backup is in a disk pool then the objects will not be sorted to restore in storage order. Objects will be restored as soon as they are found, and individual disk files may be opened several times, as more objects are added to the restore list.
Tape based data will be sequenced so the tape can be read in a single pass, so the restore cannot start until the analysis pass is finished.

DRM will be enhanced to support Active only copy pools, but the default will be that DRM will not support ACP.

There will be some support for SnapMirror to Tape, for NetApp systems, via a new type=nasmirror parameter on backup and restore commands.

Z/OS pools storage will be enhanced with support for VSAM LDS files. This means that the pool volumes can span z/OS volumes, do not need to be pre-formatted and use memory buffers more effectively.

Just noticed that IBM are running a Beta testing program for TSM 6.1

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/partners/public.jsp?tab=sales-tools&content=tsmbeta

According to the text it is due to complete next month, so the software might be released soon.

Is anyone out there on the Beta test programme?

Due to the confidential material it hard to say so much more.
Watch out for Pulse 2009..

Interesting and cryptic. I assume then that 6.1 will be announced in February?

The last I've heard 6.1 will be announced in February but that's just a rumor.

The ability to consolidate maybe 3 or 2 TSM servers into 1 TSM server due to a larger DB and Log max size will be very interesting.. The new 6.1 will consume more RAM and CPU due to DB2 undercover. But everything has a price..

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