Backup the OSS

[low...@nowhere.org]

My company has recently began developing within the OSS and I have
been given the task of setting up backups of critical files on a
daily/weekly/monthly basis.

I was wondering if there is anyone out there currently performing
routine backups of OSS files. If so, how do you do it? Do you have
it automated in any way?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Les Faby]

In article <sre8etgiagt65s6oo...@4ax.com>,
low...@nowhere.org says...
> ..... setting up backups of critical files ....
>
> [how do you do] routine backups of OSS files. ....
>

The Compaq NonStop course
"OSS Operations and Management".
covers this and other OSS topics.

http://education.tandem.com/us/cat/113500.htm

Regards .... Les Faby

[low...@nowhere.org]

I took that class last year and I did not cover any indepth backup
strategies.

It introduced PAX and that was about it.

[Randall S. Becker]

<joke> Backup? It's a Tandem! You don't need not stinkin' backups! </joke>

No, seriously, the strategies I've heard people use successfully were:
a) complete volume backups from NSK - gets an intact OSS file system on a
set of disks.
b) see a).
c) standard NSK backup strategies.
d) 'tar' under OSS to an NSK file and then back up the NSK file using
BACKUP.

Just my $0.02. Things may have changed recently.

Randy

<low...@nowhere.org> wrote in message
news:v3p9et0g75nek90au...@4ax.com...

[Rob Lesan]

>===== Original Message From low...@nowhere.org =====

This is not a trivial task, as it usually is under Guardian.

You have a few options:

We have considered:

1. tar to a tape drive
2. volume mode backups
3. PAX to guardian file, backup with Guardian.

All the options had problems.

1. tar will only write to unlabeled tapes. We use all robotic silos and
labeled tapes, so no good.

2. Volume mode backups are a pain in the ass and I don't care for the
exposure of having a mirror down for the process. If you are unmirrored,
you
have to unmount all the file systems to back them up.

3. PAX works the best, but does not support either Big Files or SMF. Our
OSS
environment outgrew 2GB VERY quickly and we use SMF for almost everything.
We
now backup each mount point separately and write the archive's to physical
volumes, later backed up with the rest of our Guardian files.

Whatever you do, test your solution thoroughly. Many of the OSS utilities
work as their *NIX counterparts do, but many have gotcha's if you need to
use
many of the capabilities of Guardian.

Good luck!

------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Lesan
Tandem Systems Programmer and
Database Analyst
------------------------------------------------------------

[Patrick]

Has anyone tested backing up OSS files via Samba? After connecting to
the Tandem through Windows Explorer, I just use the Windows Backup
utililty to backup the OSS files that I want. I've done some
preliminary testing and so far everything looks good, but perhaps
someone else has found problems.

Patrick Guillou
Tandem Systems Engineer
Verizon Data Services

[Randall S. Becker]

In this vein, you should also be able to back up the files using NFS.

"Patrick" <patrick...@verizon.com> wrote in message
news:3ae7b922.2751309824@news-server...

[Ronald Bowden]

We backup OSS routine to a DDS 3 DAT tape using pax.
This can backup 25GB of data to one tape, which in our
case will backup the entire system.

The parameters for do this are the following:

The most important is the block size.

pax -Wwait -WNOG -WNOE -b 32000 -w -f /G/tape /

If you plan on backuping the entire system, then you should
be super.super.

The parameters above indicate to wait for the tape (-Wwait). If
you do not specify this pax will terminate before the tape is loaded.

The -WNOG sayes not to backup anything in the /G directory and the -WNOE
says not the backup anything in the /E directory. The -b 32000 indicates
to use the largest blocksize available which is either 28K or 31K. This will
generally put the tape device in compressed mode too. The -w indicate that
pax is to write and the -f indicate the device that we are to write to, in
this case /G/tape.

I do not see why pax can not handle lable tapes, it just write the data. I
think that if you do not supply the -Wwait option then it will just
terminate instead of waiting for the operation to say ok on the tape mount.

The other options that are important are -Wunload and -Wnounload. This
indicates to unload the tape when finished or not to unload the tape when
finished. Since you are using a silo, the -Wunload may be the best option.

Ron Bowden

--
Bowden Systems, Inc. http://www.bsi2.com/
35 Technology Parkway South Voice: 770-613-5304
Suite 170 Fax: 770-613-5305
Norcross, GA 30092, USA email: sa...@bsi2.com

----------

In article <sre8etgiagt65s6oo...@4ax.com>, low...@nowhere.org

wrote:

[Joachim Schmitz]

Hi folks

The class talks about desaster recovery, volume mode backup, backing up and
restoring the catalog and how to use pax in quite some detail. At least when
I teach it 8-)).

Most users use pax to write an archive into /G and then use Guardian backup
because pax can't write to labeled tapes, although it can write to
non-labeled tapes (pax -wvf /G/tape ... if your tape is called $TAPE).

Bye, Jojo

<low...@nowhere.org> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:v3p9et0g75nek90au...@4ax.com...

[u4mism]

In the "to be delivered" by Compaq category, we have been lead to
believe that the new NonStop AutoSYNC product that is used to
replicate edit and other non-database files, will also replicate OSS
files and directory structures in the second release of that product.

I believe the contact in Compaq's NonStop Division is John Dennis.
TTFN,
U4

"Joachim Schmitz" <Joachim...@Compaq.com> wrote in message news:<Au0U6.1212$fi2....@news.cpqcorp.net>...