RE: backups of large IFS to tape

IFS backup has always been painfully slow.

IFS permissions are also painful.

We have had customers who had to create new user profiles as object owners monthly because of large volumes of IFS files being created before.

Many times we're seeing large customers move to SAN. I believe our team had talked to CHS about that previously as an option :-)

Another option is to rotate your IFS folders by quarter and then have a rotation that captures only current folders depending on the timeframe.

I wonder if using Image Catalogs might work. Then you would be backing up a blob instead of a bunch of small files.

All good food for thought.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
Where Information Meets Innovation
Document Management, Workflow, Report Delivery, Forms and Business Intelligence
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 736-5800
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Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT

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message: 7
date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 20:47:16 +0000
from: "Stone, Joel" <Joel.Stone@xxxxxxxxxx>
subject: backups of large IFS to tape

We are currently using a document management system (Webdocs) that stores docs on the iseries IFS.

We have 15 million docs spread across 50 folders. It takes over 24 hours to back up the IFS onto tape on v5r4.

Is there a faster method to backup IFS to tape on the iseries?

Will v7r1 provide a faster backup product or service?

We need a method that will allow individual restores of objects, so SAVSTG probably wouldn't help.

Any other ideas to speed up the backup?

Thanks!

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message: 8
date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 17:04:46 -0400
from: Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: backups of large IFS to tape

What kind of tape drive?

Does the tape share a controler with the disks?

What disks?

Average size of the documents?

How are you saving? If not in restricted state, look at the memory
assigned to the subsystem..

Where in the IFS? (Not QDLS I hope)

What release of the OS?

All of the above are factors...

I'd recommend taking a look at IBM i backup guru Debbie Saugen's
presentation "Tips and Techniques for Shrinking Backup/Recovery Windows on
IBM i"

Charles