AIX

Hello,
I'm looking for a backup solution for my system. I have 3 AIX virtual partitions running on a IBM p5 server. Each partition has it's data on a DS4700 storage server.
Also, I have a RedHat running on an IBM p720. This server has the tape hardware.
I would like to know if I can backup from the storage's disk directly to the tape (called: server-less backups).

Thanks

you can do this manually by running mksysb to filesystem/nfs (see smitty mksysb)

mount the nfs filesystem on the linux-box and copy it to the tape, don't ask me how, manually copying to tape was before I become an admin we use tsm for this
this just works for rootvg

but if I get you, you want lanless backups, directly to tapes?
nope that is not possible, since
1. tape virtualization is not possible jet, so you need dedicated hbas an each lpar for this, I assume you use an virtual io-server and map disks/lv

and
2. you can not share the tape drive from your red hat box over san to the lpars, but I'm sure addidional software is able to do this
but then you are facing point 1


If you want to directly backup from the ds4700, there is a mechanism called flash copy of the luns, but you can't copy this to a tape drive

we tried this with a ds4800, and almost had a whole outage of all systems running over vio, so better don't try on production environment

The server-less backups you refer to still needs fibre to work
and once you have that you could just as well backup strait to tape

the other way to backup would be to use a product like Veritas Netbackup
you can just use the network to backup the systems

If you then need to recover mksysb you just restore it one of the following ways

DVD
Restore mksysb files to the systems with the dvd
then use smitty mkdvd and make sure to chooce the file from the other system
you can then move dvd to the system to recover and then recover it from DVD
Note !! size limit apply in this case

NIM server
Build a nim server to restore the mksysb from

other files can just be restored using Veritas Netbackup

funksen,
If I do mksysb to filesystem/nfs, I will need more space available on each LPAR that I want to backup. no?
About FlashCopy, do I need some software else? Like Tivoli?

ravager,
I already have amanada in my RedHat for lan-backup but I can´t configure it. Amanda's suport told me that they don't have suport for PowerVM. I will search about Veritas Netbackup.

Thanks a lot

for tsm, there is a solution called sysback to tsm, which works in combination of tsm and nim server, you back up to tsm, but you don't back up filesets, the filesets come from nim server, your configuration is backed up of course


so you back up data filesystems in rootvg, fileset configuration, but not the lpp it self, which reduces the amount of space needed a lot
and a big advantage, when booting from nim with sysback you want restore, you can choose vg pp size, lv attributes, lvs to restore and so on


our sysback environment was set up by ibm, don't know how to do this manually, since you need configuratin and extensions on the tsm it self

but if its woth for you, ask your ibm key accounter, or check out redbooks
for sysback to tsm

flash copy is a mechanism of the storage box, it generates a "snapshot" of your luns, this is a part of the management software of your box, sometimes extra licenses are needed