Adjust disk scheduling priority for a process?

Hi all!

Some dumb administrator run the weekly backup "by hand" on our AIX 5.3 server, which we use to deploy Websphere applications, during work hours. Using the server while the backup is taking place is almost imposible. Both the disks are working at 100% and it's almost unusable. Asking the administrator to move the backup schedule is so politicaly difficult that I'd rather modify the running backup process myself!
As I posess root access to this server, I have already tried to renice the process but, although the server is more responsive, it's still using the disks massively and any disk-related operation takes ages.
My question is in the subject: Is there a way to reschedule the priority of a process's access to the hard drive? Say, a command that tells the OS something like "process 1028246 can't use more than 50% of the disk" ?

Thanks in advanced for any help!
Yours,

Shandrio

The AIX Workload Manager WLM is exactly what you are looking for. Comes with AIX for free since Ver. 4.3.3 and can control disk I/O since AIX 5L. You might find the following tutorial useful: Setting up AIX Workload Manager in 30 minutes.

Wow WLM seems like one hell of an incredible tool and I didn't even know it existed! Thanks a lot for your advice!!