Re: System backup in a 24/7 environment. -- MIDRANGE-L

-----Original Message-----
From: Graap Ken <keg@gasco.gasco.com>

>Hello all....
>
>I've recently changed companies and one of my first tasks is to
>reevaluate
>the backup recovery process for our 9406 530-2153 system...
>
>Where I came from we had the luxury of being able to take the system
>down
>for most of the day on Sunday to do a FULL system backup and IPL.
>
>Things are a bit different here... This system serves as our primary
>Customer
>Information / Billing system and needs to be up as close to 24/7 as
>possible.
>
>I know there are probably lots of Systems Administrators out there that
>have already
>come up with backup recovery plans that work with a 24/7 availability
>need.
>
>I was wondering if anyone would mind sharing some ideas on this subject?
>
>In a 24/7 environment when do you apply delayed PTF's?

On our production system, we IPL and apply PTF's every 4 weeks, on the
second Sunday of our fiscal period.  We document to the users that we do
this, and they have appropriate workarounds for the extra downtime.  That's
also when we do our full backup, see below.  We do have the luxury of a
development system where we test install all PTF's first - it's IPL'd twice
a week, to simplify that.

>When and how often do you run SAVSYS?

On the IPL Sunday, after it completes.  We have been doing a full Option 21
save, however we are right in the midst of testing a new program that I
wrote which does the SAVSYS, then restarts the system, and does the rest of
the saves using Save-While-Active.  This will prove very interesting, wish
me luck for this weekend.

>Are you using Save While Active (or should it be called "save SOME while
>active!)?

Slowly moving into it.  Oh, our production data files are mirrored (using
DataMirror Transformation Server) to copies on the development box, our
nightly data backups are actually made on the development system.  The
production data libraries are only backed up on that one Sunday.  So far,
we've had no serious problems restoring bits and pieces as needed, but we
haven't tested a full system restore yet.

Note that this product only provides basic mirroring of data, with no
switch-over support or object management.  Since our development machine is
only minimally capable of supporting the plant, we would only actually run
on it in a dire emergency, so using it primarily to reduce backup time on
the production box is appropriate for us, and the DataMirror product is
sufficient.  They do have a full-function product that competes with Mimix
and Vision, but I don't know much about it.

>How do you do release upgrades?

Weekends from Hell, usually (except for the last one) holidays.  The last
one was an emergency job, we had been planning on Good Friday this year for
V3R7, then MAPICS abruptly dropped support for V3R6 at the end of January.
Being able to pre-test on the development box was a Godsend, we were able to
do the entire upgrade, including backups before and after, in less than 36
hours.  Production had plenty of warning, and they were fully prepared to
work around us.

It's MAPICS upgrades that are a serious problem for us - we're estimating 3
24-hour days to do our next one Labor Day weekend, and the plant is only
closing for one day, Monday.  Aiiee!

---
Dave Shaw, General Nutrition, Greenville, SC (just down the road from BMW -
Bubba Makes Wheels :)
The opinions expressed may not be my employer's unless I'm sufficiently
persuasive...



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