Re: Reducing downtime for backups

Phil

Also consider journalling the files (if they are not already) and saving
only the journal receivers. How you set the journal up will influence it's
size - in particular the Open/CLose option.

You will need to think about when/how to change the journal receivers
regularly and how to integrate them into your save strategy.

You need some careful planning about how you do this - but I think all of
your options are going to need careful planning.

Regards
Evan Harris

>I am investigating options for reducing the length of time that the system is
>unavailable to users during our nightly backup job.  Not long ago we added
>disks
>and started creating *SAVF files in a separate ASP for the backups,
>copying the
>*SAVF's to tape later.  This reduced downtime to about 1 hour, but this
>continues to grow as we add files and the existing files grow.  We are doing
>full SAVLIB's using BRMS and have split out all of the program and
>non-essential
>libraries into a separate job.  We backup 50 GB of data which compresses to
>about 30 GB in the *SAVF format.  We are a single AS/400 shop running JD
>Edwards.
>
>At this point, the options I see are:
>      Use SAVCHGOBJ.  We have done some tests on this and determined it
> will not
>      save us much.  A large percentage of the objects are changed
> everyday and
>      the system takes too long trying to figure out which objects to save.
>      Separate "current" data from "prior year" data and store in different
>      libraries.  We have already done some of this for the largest
> files.  This
>      requires system changes because the users still need access to the prior
>      year data.
>      Use the Save While Active Option.  I suspect that this is the best
> solution
>      and there is little (if any) out-of-pocket cost.  The downsides are
> a)  The
>      time and risk associated with investigating and revising our current
>      procedures, and b) Making sure that everyone here understands the
>      implications of the new procedure.
>
>I would be appreciative of other ideas anyone may have.
>
>I have seen testimonials on this list that the newer tape drives are extremely
>fast (we have a 3570).  They couldn't possibly be faster that going to *SAVF
>files, could they?
>
>TIA
>Phil