RE: save while active v7r1 - *IBM and also SAV

PowerHA does not require journaling with Metro or Global Mirror in order to
do its job. Where it comes into play is usually when you suspend on the
primary, then bring up the target and do the backups over there. Journaling
will ensure the database recovery is done quickly and ensures object
referential integrity (within the journal receiver anyway) of the objects.
It's a best practice thing more than a requirement. The same is true of a
role swap or emergency switch.

Moving to iASPs does require some work, no doubt about it but once the
change is done it's usually easy to manage.


--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Horn,
Jim
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2015 9:22 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: save while active v7r1 - *IBM and also SAV

Hi Jim

In your first post discussing journaling you stated.

In a PowerHA environment it's essential to ensure properly managed HA
clusters.
(the same is true for the journal based replication packages)

Just trying to understand the above in regard to journaling. Before PowerHA
existed back at V5R4, I setup HA using clustering and Geo Mirroring. We
were not journaling at the time. As far as I can tell everything worked
fine, even a couple of times when we went down hard and had an automatic
failover, we could find no missing or out of sync data.
Replicating *sysbas items took some time, but we made it work. Did require
some serious changes to our library list management structure.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

message: 1
date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 17:04:54 -0500
from: "Horn, Jim" <jim.horn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: save while active v7r1 - *IBM and also SAV

I haven't been responsible for this for a few years but - sounds like
this would make a good COMMON session.

In PowerHA do you need to be doing remote journaling?

Jim

--------------------------------------------------------------------
--

message: 1
date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 14:39:14 -0500
from: "Jim Oberholtzer" <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: RE: save while active v7r1 - *IBM and also SAV

Rob brings up a salient point. ALL of your applications should be
journaled, regardless of if you use them for commit control or not.
It aids in speedier recovery from an abnormal termination, it aids
in SWA, and if set up properly with system managed journals, does
not require

significant

administrative work to manage them. In a PowerHA environment it's
essential to ensure properly managed HA clusters. (the same is true
for the

journal

based replication packages)

Another way to get past most of the complexity is BRMS. BRMS
manages

most

of the issues with respect to SWA nicely. The small investment in
BRMS will pay for itself in administration time, and recoverability
in very short order.

Another reason to use journals is to mitigate the need for getting
checkpoints across multiple libraries at one time. Granted
referential integrity might not be perfect without a multiple
library checkpoint but using journaling by application rather than
library boundary goes a long way to making that technique
acceptable.

Very few of my customers have environments were the near restricted
state (however short) to achieve a synchronization point is
required, rather by using BRMS and good use of journaling you can
achieve 98% of what you

what

without the shutdown pain.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 2:23 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: save while active v7r1 - *IBM and also SAV

Jim,

I think you are a somewhat regular attendee of COMMON. That might
be a good place to really bone up.

Some search terms are: ragged save while active.
I think that might be the title of a redbook by Larry Youngren

With little to no journalling you may catch some grief.

Stream files are very picky and snicker at save while active.

Until we did the Mimix thing and started backing up from that we
were

doing

a crappy save while active. No checkpoint processing. No journalling.
Didn't care if order header was in sync with order line, etc
SAVACT(*SYSDFN). The goal being: You can back up, just don't
disrupt

the

users from getting into the data. I argued against it but had to
bide my time until Mimix. Only took a few years...


Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail
to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com