RE: backup question

Thank you all for your suggestions. Some of the "problems" with these solutions I had thought so I called IBM this morning. During the course of the conversation I explained to the BRMS tech that I had a big problem with using the HMC to switch the allocation of the tape drive from one LPAR to another using HMC scripts.

Well, it seems that I am on version 7.3.0 service pack 1. I was told this was a very unstable version and should update to version 7.3.3 service pack 2. After doing the upgrade, then review this situation again. I was given other options but I still think in the long run, the client will be more secure if additional tapes are purchased.

More to follow as time permits
---- "Ingvaldson wrote:

It depends on how organized you can be and how technical the rest of
your staff is.

Certainly saving some tape is a worthy goal, but is it worth the risk
that a restore could fail, or even only be delayed for some amount of
time? Only you (or your company) can answer those questions.


Virtual tape is a very good means of backing up your dailies. You could
easily backup two LPARs to virtual tape and then transfer the virtual
tape files to the third LPAR to be backed up with its daily backup.
That would require a two step restore process for LPARs 1 and 2. Or you
could just use something like DUPTAP FROMDEV(TAPVRT01) TODEV(TAP01)
TOSEQNBR(*END) to put the three dailies on one tape. Then you would
just need to know the order of the saves on the tape to know which
backup goes with which LPAR.


Your Monthlies might be a little more complicated. Since you say that
they're already two tapes each we know that the number of tapes used
will probably not be reduced greatly. Since these are kept permanently
this is really where your long term tape usage is. If you could
identify a few large objects that don't change on a monthly basis you
might have some success here, but I'm not sure I'd recommend changing
these.

My goal is always to create a backup strategy that can be followed by
either an operator with documentation or an iSeries guy with no
documentation.

Regards,

Scott Ingvaldson
Senior IBM Support Specialist
Fiserv Midwest



-----Original Message-----
From: ldwopt@xxxxxxx [mailto:ldwopt@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 8:37 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: backup question

I have an opportunity presented to me and I would like some assistance
in coming up with a solution.

I have a 3 LPAR iSeries with one tape drive. The tape drive allocation
rotated between the 3 LPARs for backup purposes. The tape drive is an
LTO4. Each partition is running V5R4M5 with networked BRMS. Each day
backup is performed on each LPAR. Each tape is saved for 28 days.
Monthly backups require 6 tapes for the 3 LPARs. These 6 tapes are
stored permanently.

Now for the opportunity, reduce the number of tapes used each in the
daily backup. I had thought about creating a library on 2 of the LPARs
to contain save files of each library, save each library to a save file
and then FTP the contents of the save library to the main LPAR and then
backup the main LAR to tape those only using one tape.

The problem with this solution is restores. If I need to restore a file
from one of the alternate LPARs, I would have to restore the saved file
to a library and then restore the file from the saved file.

I would like to find other solutions to this opportunity using the tools
available.

Thanks for all your help

Dave Willenborg
FNTS
Omaha NE


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