AIX

I have 4 VIO server. I have to take backup of VIOS. I got the command "backupios" for taking the backup.

My question is if i am taking "backupios -tape /dev/rmt0 " whether it will take rootvg and all the user defined VG / File system which are using for virtual disk for client lpar.

I wants to take entire VIOS backup.

Please suggest.


Thanks inn advance.

Hi,

you need also a backup of the the virtual and logical configuration.

Code:

man viosbr

Example:

Code:

/usr/ios/cli/ioscli viosbr  -backup -file /home/padmin/backup_mapping/viosbr -frequency daily -numfiles 9

Regards

Firstly we need to establish if you are using VIO as an HMC managed LPAR or if it is running on the server with guest partitions, however either way using the backupios command will backup the rootvg of the VIO server. This might sound okay, but it will only give you configuration of and shared resources. You will need to backup the LPARs individually.

Basically, you need to consider your restore position. Are you using in-house servers at another site, or are you restoring to a specialist 3rd party provider site? If it is the latter, they will probably not care too much about VIO. You will need to describe your user LPARs and they will provide something suitable. If you are doing it in-house, then you will need to create appropriate resources on the other server.


You may be tempted to define the LPARs's virtual disks in the VIO's rootvg, but this can be a bad thing. When upgrading, they might be deleted leading to total data loss. The VIO rootvg is not yours. You best place to be is to:-

Collect system information about each LPAR to a directory within the rootvg Useful stuff would be the volume group structures except for rootvg, any recovery processes or scripts; recovery media (3rd party tools etc.) Then run a mksysb on each LPAR. That is your LPAR restore point. Then make sure you have adequate backup processes for you other volume groups to consider the applications, services and data they hold.


The VIO backupios would most likely be used if you have a server loss at your site and lose all the VIO disks in one irrevocable hit and you have to recover out. I take weekly mksysb and backupios although I do not expect I would every recover from the backupios. I would be more likely to install afresh, define my LPARs and then restore them from their mksysb images, written to DVD in may case.




I hope that this helps.

Robin,
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK

Thank you for the replies

Is there any way to get the size of backupios. accordingly i have to request DVD for taking backup.

Please suggest

I'm not sure about estimating the size. It is a mksysb and readcd -wbehind the scenes. If you haven't created any logical devices in the rootvg of the VIO server, then it should fit on a standard 4.7Gb DVD-RAM. Logical devices include virtual disks for guest LPARs or virtual optical media. You need to be aware that an upgrade of the VIO server can destroy these items too, so LPAR disks can be lost.


You can't use DVD-RW media and (obviously) you need to have a DVD Read/Write device. The default is often a DVD read-only drive as it is cheaper. Check with IBM what you have in your server. They will probably ask for the output of lscfg -vl cd0 from the VIO command line.





Robin