Certainly not any time soon, but there are trends to be aware of

Few companies have eliminated all forms of tape backup. Ultimately, it may be more important to focus on automating the process than upgrading the media.

About 10 years ago, many experts predicted that media backups would be replaced by disk-to-disk backups. Yet today, most System i installations still are doing some form of tape backup. Why? Is it a comfort zone? Is it really needed? And, if we are stuck with some form of backup, can we automate the process?

The truth is that the backup copies of our data are valuable assets. The backup media and other aspects of the backup task might change (for example, we might perform the backups through the network, across fiber optics, or by replicating data to a high availability system), but the need for backups will never go away.

I like to think of backups as an insurance policy. Performing a backup is like paying the monthly premium. The payoff comes when you can successfully restore your company’s data at a recovery center without jumping through hoops. The real backup issues are recoverability and automation.

Six key areas to automate
Automating computer systems has two huge benefits. It increases staff productivity and it reduces errors. If we start to think about automated backups as an insurance policy, what features should we look for in such a policy? I think there are six key areas:

• Tape/media tracking
• Robotics
• Virtual tape
• Restricted state
• Restoration reporting
• Regulations
• Tape/media tracking

Whether you are using a disk-to-disk network backup or a disk-to-tape solution, it is important to have a system that eliminates manual recording of storage information. A good tape/media tracking feature provides an easy-to-use inventory of what is stored on the backup media and where the media are located. Ideally, the system also provides a central repository of information for all systems in the data center, defines media retention periods, provides easy-to-use reporting, and tracks ad hoc backups by IT staff.

Robotics
Today, robotic devices can load tapes by infrared bar codes, eliminating the need to manually mount tapes. While this technology is needed to run automated backups, it introduces another level of complexity. When you acquire this equipment, get all the vendor training you can. Unfortunately, hardware vendors don’t seem to have a lot of knowledge about backup and recovery software, so it falls to the users to try to marry the two successfully. Once you get over that hurdle, you can enjoy the benefits of automation.

Virtual tape
IBM introduced virtual tape as part of V5R4. System administrators now can save data to a directory in the Integrated File System (IFS) to perform essentially a disk-to-disk backup. Virtual tape can be on an auxiliary storage pool (ASP) that is local or remote. Using a high-speed optical connection, backup speed is good and media errors are eliminated.

IBM designed virtual tape to mimic saving to a tape drive and retained the concept of a “volume.” That gives backup-and-recovery software the ability to support the technology through media management features.

Restricted state
If you can afford downtime once a week, I recommend automating restricted state backups. With increased tape capacity and software automation tools, you can run an automated and monitored restricted state backup completely unattended. For companies that need 24×7 system availability, this is a more painful issue. From a technical standpoint, you don’t really need to do a SAVSYS operation in i5/OS. The dynamic part of the OS can be backed up by commands that do not require a restricted state. However, very few people skip this backup because a recent SAVSYS makes it easier to restore the system. To eliminate downtime, some companies use high availability (HA) software to replicate the system and then run restricted-state backups on the HA system.

Restoration reporting
As backups complete, the data restoration plan should be updated in the database automatically. Then, the updated plan should be transmitted automatically to your remote hot site or off-site storage. The restoration process should be tested periodically. In speaking with experts at both IBM and SunGard, I have concluded that many people test as though disasters have a timetable. Administrators do a full-system save one weekend and a system test the next. This is not realistic. You need to test recoverability with the assumption that the failure has occurred at a less-than-optimal time, such as midday.

Regulations
If your team cannot figure out how to automate the processes and procedures around backup and recovery, you will spend enormous amounts of time handling Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and other regulatory requirements. Backups will not be going away anytime soon, and you should focus on alleviating the manual paper trail in this area. Your tape management systems should provide the reporting you need for your auditors. If they don’t, you should look for a better solution.

The need for backups is not going away. We will continue to see technological improvements. Solid-state technology (such as thumb drives) will become cheaper, eating away at the standard technologies of disk and tapes. As technological changes occur, evaluate whether they help your data center become more automated.

By Tom Huntington, Vice President of Technical Services

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 9:46 am and is filed under Robot/SAVE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.