What to do at a Hot Site

Do you know what to do with your Help/Systems software if disaster strikes? Help/Systems Provides 24/7 support for the Robot product line.

If disaster strikes, how do I recover my Help/Systems software? When I’m at our hot site testing the disaster recovery plans for our business applications, how do I activate the Robot products? As Technical Support Consultants, we frequently field questions similar to these. First, let’s look at the general considerations that apply to all the Robot products, and then at the special considerations that apply to a few of the products.

General Considerations

You are licensed to use the Robot products based on the model of your system and its unique serial number (permanent security code) or by a temporary date (temporary security code). You must call us for a temporary security code prior to using your Help/Systems software on your disaster recovery systems.

If you are at your hot site because of a disaster, call 952-933-0609 at any time. A Technical Consultant will give you a temporary security code. This line is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You should be aware, however, that outside our regular office hours, it might take us up to an hour to get back to you.

Regular office hours are:

• 7:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. CT, Monday through Thursday
• 7:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. CT on Fridays

Backup also is something you should consider for all the products. The Help/FACTS, Backing Up the Robot Products, describes how to back up all the Robot products. Each of the Robot products should be backed up. All products require your input to run properly on your system, so having the backup information available at your hot site will save you time.

Most people at a hot site restore from a full system backup, including network attributes. The hot site system is given the name of the host at the regular site. If you are at a hot site and restore the product user libraries for Robot/AUTOTUNE, Robot/CONSOLE, Robot/REPORTS, Robot/SAVE, Robot/SCHEDULE, or Robot/UPS to a host system with a different name, you will have to run the command RSLCHGSYSN against these products. This command changes the internal fields that contain the old system name to the new system name.

Product-Specific Considerations

Robot/SAVE

Before disaster strikes, make sure you review Robot/SAVE’s Audit Report every day. It takes only a few seconds to review this report for backup and recovery errors—critical information to know at your hot site.

When you go to your hot site, take the necessary documentation. We recommend that you bring the Robot/SAVE User Guide and the IBM Backup and Recovery Guide. The IBM Backup and Recovery Guide tells you how to restore your IBM Licensed Internal Code (microcode) and operating system.

After you have loaded the IBM Licensed Internal Code and the operating system, use the Robot/SAVE Guided Restoration Report and the Robot/SAVE User Guide to recover your user data. Robot/SAVE creates this report automatically after every backup and it details step-by-step instructions. Print and store this report with the backup media every day.

In addition, you should be aware that Robot/SAVE places a copy of its database at the end of each complete set of backup tapes. You will find information about how Robot/SAVE is set up and how to restore your system in the RBSDTALIB library.

Robot/AUTOTUNE

We recommend that that you keep a “clean” copy of this product available and do a clean install at the hot site. In general, the size of the system and its memory setup will be different from the system in your regular data center. As a result, it is easier to do a clean install.

Robot/ NETWORK

If you have two or more systems and use Robot/NETWORK in your data center, and you will use multiple machines at the hot site, bring along Robot/NETWORK. Depending on your circumstances, you may want to delete and reinstall the product to reflect the differences in the hot site and your regular site.

Summary

Our Product Support teams are here to help you through all technical issues. Your Robot product maintenance contracts cover you in case disaster strikes, so don’t hesitate to call.