So I think you are after creating media that you can recover your OS from in the case of a total server loss or something catastrophic happening that prevents you booting.
There are a number of products out there.
- AIX has mksysb built in
- HP-UX has Ignite
- I think Solaris has one too (can't remember the name)
...and these are generally free with the OS. Working on Linux, however, you may have to consider one of the following:-
- If you are running as a virtual machine (VMWare etc.) there will be tools in the host to make and copy an image of your boot disk. Perhaps called a snapshot or clone.
- Commercial software Storix, from the team who originally wrote mksysb
- Commercial software 'Christie Clone Manager' which may provide this too.
- Others may be available, but I haven't come across them yet.
It depends what you have available to you. Each has a different cost (money and effort/resources) to get running according to your needs. Perhaps we can guide you if we know the scenario you are considering.
I'm presuming that your business data is stored by some other method (over the network to a tape library with Networker, Legato, Tivoli, Arcserve, ...... etc.)
You may need to consider how to recover the volume group/logical volume/filesystem structure to restore with too. Be aware that you would need to ensure that your backup/recovery software would need to be included in whatever you write to your boot-media or a know process to install when you need to.
Most importantly, practice the recovery.
Kind regards,
Robin
