Backing up the Virtual I/O Server
You can back up the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) and user-defined virtual devices using the backupios command or the viosbr command. You can also use IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager to schedule backups and to store backups on another server.
The VIOS contains the following types of information that you need to back up: the VIOS itself and user-defined virtual devices.
- The VIOS includes the base code, applied fix packs, custom device drivers to support disk subsystems, and some user-defined metadata. All this information is backed up when you use the backupios command.
- User-defined virtual devices include metadata, like virtual devices
mappings, that define the relationship between the physical environment
and the virtual environment. You can back up user-defined virtual
devices in one of the following ways:
- You can back up user-defined virtual devices by using the viosbr command. Use this option in situations where you plan to restore the configuration information to the same VIOS partition from which it was backed up.
- You can back up user-defined virtual devices by saving the data
to a location that is automatically backed up when you use the backupios command
to back up the VIOS. Use this option in situations where you plan
to restore the VIOS to a new or different system. (For example, in
the event of a system failure or disaster.) Furthermore, in these
situations, you must also back up the following components of your
environment. Back up these components to fully recover your VIOS configuration:
- External device configurations, such as storage area network (SAN) devices.
- Resources defined on the Hardware Management Console (HMC), such as processor and memory allocations. In other words, back up your HMC partition profile data for the VIOS and its client partitions.
- The operating systems and applications running in the client logical partitions.
You can back up and restore the VIOS as follows.
Backup method | Media | Restoration method |
---|---|---|
To tape | Tape | From tape |
To DVD | DVD-RAM | From DVD |
To remote file system | nim_resources.tar image | From an HMC using the Network Installation Management (NIM) on Linux facility and the installios command |
To remote file system | mksysb image | From an AIX 5L™ NIM server and a standard mksysb system installation |
Tivoli Storage Manager | mksysb image | Tivoli Storage Manager |