RE: Virtual Tape Process

In line reply.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DrFranken
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 4:36 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Virtual Tape Process

FTP is one method yes and that would work.

Another option, as you mentioned NFS, is that once the backup is
completed use NFS to copy them to the SAN that way.

Am I interpreting that properly to mean move them from the image catalog
directory in IFS to an NFS mount over a different IFS directory?

With either method I would absolutely come up with a way to verify that
the transfer is complete and correct or you could find yourself with
'half a backup' which is approximately equal to 'no backup at all.'

This is a point I was discussing with a colleague earlier. I can do restores
to alternate libraries and do file size comparisons but the data for some
libraries is obviously constantly changing. What is a common/best practice
for verifying? Is there a backup solution/software that I should really be
looking at?

You are correct that the images for any catalog must exist on the
system where the catalog itself exists. (Exceptions for NFS Based
optical disks being READ) We hold out hope that on future releases this
restriction will be lifted (anybody at IBM reading this?? :-) )

A word of caution is that you *MUST* Still maintain proper tape based
saves of the system (SAVE option 22) because you'll need that to put
the system back together far enough to be able to return the virtual
tape images to the system in order to restore from them.

We are still planning those as well. As you say that would be most
unfortunate to be without. :)

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis


On 12/1/2011 3:41 PM, Jason Taylor wrote:

Hi Everyone,

We are investigating using virtual tapes for our backups and I am
wondering what the best method would be to transfer the data off the
box once the backup is complete. I was initially thinking of a tape
for each day of the week and then FTP'ing the file to our SAN/NAS
device and from there it will be replicated offsite to a datacenter.
(This step appears to be necessary because I can't mount the image
catalog on an NFS mount.) I know I can FTP the files I have tested

that but I am wondering if there is a better way.

Since I am a mere fledgling iseries admin I am turning to the

experts.

What would be the best approach for this? TIA...

-Jason

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