AIX

Yes, I know. It is painful trying to manage this system in its current state. The only backup is tarballs of the application data that are ftp'd to another site. There is no backup of the operating system or the application binaries.

I know that I can create a mksysb backup on an NFS filesystem, but I thought that you had to have a NIM server to restore from this type of backup. Is that not correct?

I would love to upgrade this system, but I will not do so until I get a good mksysb. See previous question.

Thanks for the suggestions regarding SLAs and IOPs. I will see what information of this type I can gather and present to the higher-ups.

I don't think this system uses a "real" database. I believe the cobol programs merely read and write data files.

I will check with the software vendor and see if their application supports AIO.

Yes, most of the filesystems are still using JFS, not JFS2. I would love to create new filesystems and "migratepv" their applications to the new pv's, but I don't have any space to do so right now.

This system is hurting. I am just trying to make a convincing argument to fix it the "right" way, and all of your suggestions have been most helpful!

I'll post an update and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again! The only outstanding question I have right now is the one above regarding the mksysb backups.

The only good news here is that if the app's "installation routine" consists of extracting a tar archive you could create the app's filesystem with the same name on different disks in a separate volumegroup.

A complete mksysb is vital and I agree you should not start the upgrade without. I may add another hint: given that your rootvg is mirrored correctly you could use alt_disk_install to speed up the upgrade procedure. From the man page: