IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a software module that works with IBM Tivoli Storage Manager to better protect the infrastructure and application data and improve the availability of SAP R/3 Servers.

Specifically designed and optimized for the SAP R/3 environment, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for ERP provides automated data protection, reduces the CPU performance impact of data backups and restores on the R/3 server, and greatly reduces the administrator workload necessary to meet data protection requirements. Tivoli Storage Manager for ERP builds on the SAP database, a set of database administration functions integrated with R/3 for database control and administration. The Storage Manager for ERP software module allows multiple R/3 servers to utilize a single Tivoli Storage Manager server to automatically manage the backup of R/3 data. As the intelligent interface to the R/3 database, Tivoli Storage Manager for ERP is SAP certified in heterogeneous environments, supporting large-volume data backups, data recovery, data cloning and disaster recovery of multiple SAP R/3 servers.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Enterprise Resource Planning offers the following features:

• Data Protection for R/3 can handle large amounts of data reliably to minimize downtimes and operational cost and flexibly adapts to changing requirements in a dynamic system infrastructure
   
• Unlike other offerings, which merely provide an interface to a generic storage management tool, Data Protection for R/3 is specifically designed and optimized for the R/3 environment, delivering business value by focusing on automated operation, built-in productivity aids, optimum performance and investment protection
   
• Multiple management classes provide a library structure for sets of device parameters, which means allowing for the device parameters can be called by class names
   
• Multiple path/session support provides one path or session per tape device, thus maximizing backup and restore performance
   
• Multiple server operations allow multiple Tivoli Storage Manager servers to be used in parallel for backup and restore, thus eliminating capacity bottlenecks
   
• Multiplexing merges multiple data streams into one data stream, thereby exploiting the full write bandwidth of storage devices and minimizing backup window times.
   
• ultiple log files store log files in two management classes, thus providing additional security through redundancy of log files
   
• SAN support and integration allows the use of SAN fiber channels with high bandwidth, thus freeing up the LAN
   
• Centralized management with administration assistant enables policies and processes to be managed from a central point, thus achieving consistent backup and recovery of critical data, even in "lights out" operations
   
• Policy controlled file migration across storage hierarchies uses the most cost effective storage media based on retention periods and resource usage, thus decreasing the cost of ownership
   
• Support for Flash Copy and split mirror technology creates an additional disk for backup purposes, thus R/3 applications and performance are unaffected during the backup
   
• Standby servers can be switched to within seconds during a failure, thus achieving 100 percent availability of R/3 applications
   
• Adaptive file sequencing sorts and sequences files to be backed up according to the overall situation of the path and session load, thereby optimizing resource usage and decreasing total backup and restore times
   
• SNMP traps enable communication with other applications, making control of the data management system available for other applications