RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

From: rob@xxxxxxxxx

How can I do a full system save to virtual tape without any downtime?
Can't.

You can do nearly everything but the SAVSYS without being in a restricted
state, and then you can do the SAVSYS in a very short window because it's
disk to disk.

Some people think we're quite nuts for running RCLSTG as often as we do,
but we do, and for our own reasons.

You do a lot of things for your own reasons, and typically they're reasons
which are unique to your IT environment.  That's really my point.  You are
without a doubt the farthest end of the spectrum in iSeries management in my
experience (and as such, a great example!).

We also schedule the myriad of hardware upgrades, etc that a dynamic
company has.

The companies I work with certainly have upgrades... but typically at most
one or two a year.  Often less.  I don't know why your environment requires
so many; that's just another unique characteristic of your environment.
 

We even load our ptf's while the system is active, delayed(*yes) and
schedule the IPL later.  Even with all that, traditionally we start at
19:00 on a Friday and aren't letting the users back on until about 24
hours later.
We do this process every 8 weeks.  With some slight skewing at end of
year.  Nothing done during December and January.

Joe, your machine is quite expendable.  It's really your development toy.
As a consultant I really don't see your machine banging out the
transactions.  And I don't foresee a lot of users banging away on the
machine.  In fact, you probably do your best to keep your kids off of the
machine.  Not all of us have as their DR plan restoring a library or two
on a customers machine and doing development there.  It's a whole
different ball game.

Hee hee!  I don't even include my own little network in any downtime
numbers.  I've basically had 16 hours of downtime in five years.  As you
say, it's a development environment.

But I have quite a few clients.  I have clients who run 24x7 and yet don't
go through nearly the heroics you do.  Among my clients (other than you), a
24 hour downtime every eight weeks is absolutely unheard of.  My other
clients couldn't afford it.  I don't know how you manage!

Joe