RE: BRMS and Backup strategy -- MIDRANGE-L

All you say is true Darrell. In reference to Lukas, they already have
BRMS, they do not have to purchase it at this time. When he said that
his recovery strategy was "complicated" I said why not use STRRCYBRM
OPTION(*SYSTEM) ACTION(*RESTORE)? BRMS will also print you a nice 20
page step by step Recovery Report if that's your choice for restoring
your system.

Admittedly you cannot run an option 21 save from batch, but is that
really a weakness of the i5/OS in its as-delivered state? Here we run a
SAVSYS and SAVLIB *IBM once a month (30 minutes of downtime), SAVCHGOBJ
daily (SWA - about 10 minutes downtime) and SAVLIB *ALLUSR weekly (Also
SWA - 30 minutes downtime) I have as much confidence in our backups as
in any Option 21 save. I am also confidant that any competent iSeries
Admin could restore the system from our tapes, even without the recovery
report. These capabilities do exist in the i5/OS in its as-delivered
state.

There is no requirement to *SPENDMONEY to automate (most of) your backup
strategy. The only backups that require a restricted state are those
that include the LIC or QSYS and you can have a very reliable backup
strategy doing those monthly. If you truly can't afford the downtime,
then you do need to *SPENDMONEY, not on BRMS but on High Availability.

As Al rightly pointed out yesterday, the problem is not really the
BACKUP, it is the RESTORE.

Regards,

Scott Ingvaldson
System i Administrator
GuideOne Mutual Insurance Company

-----Original Message-----
From: Darrell A Martin [mailto:DMartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 7:40 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: BRMS and Backup strategy

Scott:

One frequently overlooked component of this discussion is that BRMS is
an EXTRA COST addition to the operation system. If you want to discuss
i5/OS in its default as-delivered state, then you have to leave BRMS out
of it.
As far as I know, having Read The Fine Manuals *and* having asked the
question on this list, it is not possible to run an equivalent of GO
SAVE
21 from batch. The closest I have found is the ability to schedule GO
SAVE
21 in an interactive session, but that has two severe limitations:
first, it must be done less than 24 hours from the intended start time;
and second, the interactive session must be left running until the save
is complete. Besides the security considerations, that is extremely
inconvenient.

If you do want to consider added cost programs, which is of course one
reasonable course to take, then there are fine applications that will
automate i5/OS backup for you. However, some if not all require that
BRMS be loaded in order to work. (Some may not, meaning only that I have
not personally encountered any that do not, but I haven't looked very
hard).

Darrell

Darrell A. Martin - 630-754-2141
Manager, Computer Operations
dmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 06/07/2007 11:11:26 AM:

setting up full system, fully automated backups on i5/OS is

cumbersome, and can't be done online unless you use SWA, which
requires journals and which is not supported by all application and
gives additional maintenance effort.

Journals? We don't need no stinking journals!

Not supported by all applications? You mean you can take your system
to a restricted state but you can't end a single application for 15
minutes?

Additional maintenance effort? Once your backup is set up properly it

should need approximately 0 maintenance. Even new objects should get
backed up automagically. BRMS will even tell you if you missed
anything: msgBRM1570 - Library QPFRDATA is not included in save
strategy.

Please Read The Fine Manuals.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/topic/books/sc41
53
04.pdf

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v5r3/topic/books/sc41
53
45.pdf

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg244840.pdf

Regards,

Scott Ingvaldson
System i Administrator
GuideOne Mutual Insurance Company

-----Original Message-----
From: Lukas Beeler [mailto:l.beeler@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 10:32 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Backup strategy

I take issue with the way you continually point at this or that in
the

system and basically engage in name calling.

I'm not a marketing person. But yes, I could use better words to do
this
- and yes, I sometimes exaggerate things that I don't like from time
to time. I'm not perfect either.

I would argue that my Windows 2003 server isn't doing that now
because

I haven't configured it.

All backups have to be configured - I don't have a problem with
setting up BRMS and configuring control groups. The issue I have is
that setting up full system, fully automated backups on i5/OS is
cumbersome, and can't be done online unless you use SWA, which
requires journals and which is not supported by all application and
gives additional maintenance effort.

Windows Server 2003 ships with ntbackup - which is awful, especially
when dealing with tapes. You will need complicated scripts that have
several race conditions because labeling the tapes etc. isn't handled
by ntbackup. Using ntbackup for production backups is an absolute
nightmare. But even ntbackup supports Shadow Copies (and they are
enabled by default), that can backup all your files online, your
Exchange IS, and your SQL Database.

(e.G. http://ntbackup.no-ip.com/)

But with an additional cost feature (like BRMS is for i5/OS), you can
buy for example Symantec BackupExec. Symantec BackupExec can be setup
by a drooling monkey and does all of the stuff right - you can do a
full system save (while the system is online - you just need a few
seconds of a quiet period, this can be achieved by pausing services
for a minute) together with IDR (Intelligent Disaster Recover) media,
which gives you a similar experience to a D IPL from a Save 21.

This is all cool and dandy, until you want to restore your Windows
Backup to another Machine. Here is where i5/OS shines. Restoring
Windows to different hardware can be an absolute PITA. This is why
most bigger Windows environments just backup the data and do automatic

reinstallation of failed servers, and then restore the data from
redundancy etc. (it depends a lot on the size of the environment,
though). But tape backups are still the best way for small businesses.

While this is a huge benefit to many organizations (yours too it
seems) it is also one of our largest problems.

It's interesting, I made the exact same point in a discussion in the
midrange chat yesterday.

Thinking your suggestions fall on deaf ears is simply wrong.

I've had two major issues, one regarding the Windows Print Driver for
creating Color AFP Overlays, and another related to the Thin Console.

Dealing with IBM was excruating and unproductive.

http://projectdream.org/misc/pmr-overlays.txt

Yes, I've called them back on this one, since they told me Q1/2007 was

the time this might be implemented. I was promised a return call, but
never got one.

http://projectdream.org/misc/PMR-ThinConsole.htm

I was asked to submit a DCR - I did. Never received a response.

Since then I stopped submitting Non-Breaking Problems to IBM, because
they obviously do not care about fixing problems in their products.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Larry Bolhuis
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 5:01 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Backup strategy

Lukas,

No System i is not perfect though I will continue to argue that it IS
the best system going.

I take issue with the way you continually point at this or that in the

system and basically engage in name calling. "nasty hack", 'lazy" and
phrases like that do not do ANYTHING to make people want to listen to
you or want to improve the product. Statements like:

"Windows can do all this without any downtime, and without any special

configuration."

are gratuitous in nature and not even true. I would argue that my
Windows 2003 server isn't doing that now because I haven't configured
it. Therefore it must require at least some special configuration. On

the other hand I know of System i shops who were doing complete
unattended backups back when their System i still said S/38 on the
front.

You state that SWA doesn't work for your software because it is not
current. That is not IBM's fault. IBM has been telling us to use
commitment control for 15 years. Therefore you are 'lazy' as you've
had since you were 8 years old to fix this and you still aren't done.

You must realize that one of the largest benefits of System i is the
ability to run code from 25 years ago, in some cases without so much
as a re-compile. It does that on the smallest and the largest machines

in the family. While this is a huge benefit to many organizations
(yours too it seems) it is also one of our largest problems. It allows

problems

like applications without commitment control which therefore make
functions like SWA orders of magnitude more difficult to implement.
This means those "lazy" people at IBM can either spend their time on
new

functions that we all want or on support for applications that were
they

modernized wouldn't need the support!

Microsoft simply drops support for things and tells us to 'write new'
or

'update your stuff'. While IBM clearly does this too they hang on to
things in some cases far longer than they really should to support the

'lazy' user community who doesn't want to update their code.

If you truly want to help then suggest suggest suggest. Name calling,
and gratuitous statements that one OS is better than another don't
help anyone and they anger many. Certainly not everything you suggest
will be

implemented, there are only so many hours and dollars and of course
what

you want may be something others don't want. There must be balance.
Thinking your suggestions fall on deaf ears is simply wrong. I have
made

many suggestions and I know it often takes years for them to come to
light. Often when I suggest something I'm told it's already in the
plan because someone else beat me to it, good for them.

Like the poor guy who lit a fire in his kayak to stay warm causing it
to

sink, you will discover that you can't have your kayak and heat it

too.

-Larry

Lukas Beeler wrote:

I'm puzzled by your reply. The System i isn't perfect, and I don't

think

it's bad to talk about the flaws about any given platform - in the

long

term this will help the platform to improve.

I've been working with the System i for two years now, and I'm

currently

23 years old - thus I'm probably not the average person on this list

that has started on an AS/400. I also don't think that the System i
is

the golden bullet to any IT problem.

There are many things that are good about it, but I don't really
have much interest in those, as a technician I have to care about
the

things

that do not work, or do not work good.

I've had my share of contacts with IBM, and I've submitted several

PMRs

and Change Requests, and I've mostly fallen on deaf ears (most

probably

because we sell to small businesses and not 5 million US$ 595 like

other

people on this list).

I do not think that the System i is a bad platform, and I enjoy

working

with it. But I think it's very important to have a look at the flaws

of

this platform, and make them public. I'm neither a fan or supporter
of

Windows or the System i - I work with both extensively, and I share
my

experiences. As I'm not a marketing person, there's not much reason
to

share all the good stories about the System i, there's also no
reason for me to post a list of things that Windows does much worse
than the System i.

I regularly blog about my experiences, and I've also published a few

manuals that are more straightforward than IBMs usual writing
(http://projectdream.org/wordpress/category/system-i/).

I'm not going the retract my "IBM is lazy" statement, as I still
consider it to be true. But if it helps, I will add that Microsoft
is lazy too.

If the consent of this list (and not your sole opinion) is that I

should

unsubscribe because I have an opinion different from the Usual
midrange-l groupthink, then I will do so.

Personal replies welcome.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Larry Bolhuis
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 2:07 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Backup strategy

Lukas.

Please leave our platform. It obviously does not work for you and I
am

puzzled as to why you continue to run it with it's massive flaws,
ugly

hacks, and incomplete capabilities. Clear Windows has everything
you would ever need in an operating system. Please enjoy it and I
hope tt will never fail you.

With your last comment I would recommend you apologize to the
hundreds

of fine folks in Rochester who put their heart and soul into this
operating sytem. That is an INSULT and you should retract it

forthwith.

- Larry

Lukas Beeler wrote:

BRMS console was a nasty hack that required manual interaction with

the

system - thus, completely unusable for deployment. With V5R4, BRMS

can

finally do all the stuff on it's own.

Quote:
However, you must start the console monitoring function on the
system

console prior to leaving the machine to operate in unattended mode.

SWA is, for all intents and purposes, unusable - it has complicated

requirements for restores and also doesn't work correctly with
legacy

programs that are not transaction safe. Thus, SWA is not an option

(at

least for us).

And hey, Windows can do all this without any downtime, and without

any

special configuration or waiting for V5R4. IBM is just lazy.

--

Larry Bolhuis IBM Certified Advanced Technical

Expert

- System i Solutions
Vice President IBM Certified Systems Expert:
Arbor Solutions, Inc. System i Technical Design and
Implementation V5R4
1345 Monroe NW Suite 259 eServer i5 iSeries LPAR Technical
Solutions, V5R3
Grand Rapids, MI 49505 IBM Certified Specialist
System i Integration with
BladeCenter

and System x V1
(616) 451-2500 System i IT Simplification: Linux
Technical V5R4
(616) 451-2571 - Fax iSeries System Administrator for
OS/400 V5R3
(616) 260-4746 - Cell

If you can read this, thank a teacher....and since it's in English,
thank a soldier.

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