Integrating Backup Recovery and Media Services and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager on the IBM eServer iSeries Server

Chapter 9. Setting up an iSeries server as the Backup Recovery and Media Services Application Client 325

We need

one QIC media BRM00x, if our restore case is on Saturday. This is because we

have our full system backup from Friday.

We need

two QIC media BRM00x and BRM00y, if our restore case is from our Monday

through Thursday backups. For example, we have the backup media for Wednesday, because

then we have our full system backup from the Friday before on one BRM00x and our latest

SAVMEDIBRM data on BRM00y.

9.6 Save-while-active implications

The save-while-active synchronize libraries (*SYNCLIB) function is not supported when

saving libraries to an IBM Tivoli Storage Manager server. When libraries are saved to an IBM

Tivoli Storage Manager server, one save command is used to save each library, because

internally OS/400 requires the save to be set up as a save to a save file. The *SYNCLIB value

is ignored if it is specified. For details about *SYNCLIB, see 2.5, “Save-while-active function”

on page 25.

Although save-while-active *SYNCLIB is not supported, Save While Active without *SYNCLIB

is supported for the BRMS Application Client to an IBM Tivoli Storage Manager server.

Remember that Save While Active for non-library IFS objects in this IBM Tivoli Storage

Manager environment is supported.

An option to consider is to define a dedicated message queue, for example SAVE in

QUSRBRM, to see all messages about checkpoint processing during Save While Active and

verify the contents of this message queue. As shown in Figure 9-87, we created the backup

control group ITSMSAVE on system AS02, which backups nearly all user data to our IBM

Tivoli Storage Manager server on AS27. Inside this backup control group, we use Save While

Active for all user libraries (*ALLUSR) and for IFS backup (*LINK).

Messages about checkpoint processing of the detail backup items are sent to message

queue QUSRBRM/SAVE. Because we want to have only actual messages for the latest

backup in this message queue, we define in item sequence number 10 *EXIT CLRMSGQ

Important: For complete system recovery of system AS02, we must follow exactly the

steps in our recovery report. This report is one of the most outstanding aspects of the

BRMS product. This is important regardless of whether BRMS backed up exclusively to

attached tape media or ran as the BRMS Application Client to an IBM Tivoli Storage

Manager server.

When backing up as the BRMS Application Client, before we perform the recover

additional user libraries step, we must ensure that our connection to the backed up to IBM

Tivoli Storage Manager server system AS27 is up and running. This is because, beginning

with this step, our restore process must contact the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager server to

gather data from it.

Restriction: Because save-while-active *SYNCLIB is not supported in this environment, it

makes no sense to use the Monitor Save While Active (MONSWABRM) command. The

MONSWABRM command reviews the save-while-active message queue and looks for the

message indicating the end of library synchronization. When synchronization is detected,

you can issue a command to the system. You can use the MONSWABRM command as an

exit (*EXIT) special value in a control group during backup processing.

In summary, because we do not

have messages about the end of library synchronization,

the monitoring of these messages provides no additional value.