Back up the HMC at regular intervals

Back up the HMC at regular intervals so that the HMC can be restored in the event of an HMC hardware malfunction.

The backup saves important HMC configuration information, including the following:

• User IDs and roles
• Network configuration information
• Security configuration settings
• Updated Licensed Machine Code components
• Partition profile definitions and snapshots

For more information about backing up the HMC, see Backing up critical HMC data. You can also schedule an automatic backup of HMC configuration information.

The HMC keeps a default backup file of the partition data locally, and also on the managed system. The backup file on the managed system is updated each time the HMC partition configuration changes.

If the managed system is in the recovery operating state, the HMC has determined that the partition data stored on the managed system is corrupted, or possibly lost due to a parts-replacement service action. Because you can overwrite the partition profile data on the managed system with the current partition profile information stored on the HMC, it is important for you to also keep a backup copy of the HMC, with the partition profile data. It is especially important that you back up your HMC data in the following instances:

• After you change partition profile properties on a managed system
• Before you update managed system Licensed Internal Code
• After you reinstall the HMC machine code or apply corrective service to the HMC
• After you upgrade the HMC machine version to a new level