[sha012]

Hello All,

Here are some experiences --add if you have anything from your side

The "very very" important backups for p5 environments are the VIO server backups and the HMC critical data backups. And these two happen to be the most neglected and sometimes not even present inthe Disaster Recovery Plan.

The backup of VIO server is pretty straight forward as it is mentioned inthe redbook(advanced power virtualization)

1)Export a directory from a NIM / NFS server where you want to save the vio-bkp

2)On vio server, mount the exported filesystem onto a local directory

3)issue a backupios command ( you have 2 options here )
a)backupios -file "/the directory name" --this creates a nim_resources.tar file which contains the mksysb and the spot ,
b)backupios -file "/the directory name" -mksysb ---this creates only the mksysb file.

---------------
The above can be done fairly easily manually and can be incorporated into a script to be run in cron on VIO server to automate the process ....BUT this method is not supported by IBM...and I dont know why !!! ...maybe this will be incorporated inthe next versions of the VIO
---------------

The supported method is

1)setup ssh between a nfs/nim server and the HMC to operate without password. This way, from a AIX command line you can run VIO commands.

2)Here is a example
hmc2clx is the HMC console
nim1crs is the NIM/nfs server
server-** is the p5 server/managed system
agp001-I/O Server -- is the VIO server

from the nim server ,which is a 5.3 tl4 box, i issue the following commands

# ssh hmc2clx -l hscroot 'viosvrcmd -m Server-** -p agp001-I/O
Server -c "mount nim1crs:/rmt_mksysb /home/padmin/backup_loc"'

# ssh hmc2clx -l hscroot 'viosvrcmd -m Server-** -p agp001-I/O
Server -c "backupios -file /home/padmin/backup_loc/agp001"'



This is put it in a cron onthe NIM server, and it takes care of the VIO backups every friday. I have 5 VIO servers in my environment


Let me know how you guys are doing this...

Thankyou
Kumar

[FASherman]

IBM definitely needs to work on the administrative functions of VIO and its user friendliness. What I'd really like to see is two hidden VIO partitions - like the hypervisor partition - that can be managed via the HMC GUI.

[steevojb]

Hi there,

If the method of mounting a filesystem on a NIM server isn't supported. Why is it documented in the IBM VIO Server manual ?

Steve