about bl860c ignite-ux backup and recovery

[Studyhack]

Does anyone know how to ignite-ux backup/recovery with tape or tape library except using tape blade for bl860c?

I am looking for a tape/tape library solution for ignite-ux backup, please suggest the model i can use, thank you.

OS: HP-UX 11i v3
Blade enclosure: c7000
HP 4Gb Fibre Channel Pass-thru Module for c-Class BladeSystem (16-port)
SAS switch: AJ864A - HP 3Gb 8-port SAS 2.0 BL-c Switch Module for BladeSystem c-Class Enclosure

Machine model: bl860c
SAS controller: HP Smart Array P700m Controller/512
HBA: QLogic QMH2462 4Gb FC HBA for HP c-Class BladeSystem

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Tape library probably will not work with Ignite. Ignite will only tape boot of a select few tape drives, and its really easier to take care of this with a stand alone tape drive.

Better you set up an Ignite server on your network, use make_net_recovery to do backups to an NFS share and network boot to recover.

Tape libraries are problematic and you may find if you do research, HP-UX boot is not supported on yours.

A stand alone Ultrium drive? That is a good solution. I recommend Ignite network server though because it eliminates the need for a tape drive at all.

SEP

[Studyhack]

Hi, Steven. Thanks for prompt reply.

Yes, it is correct, Ignite server is much better than ignite-ux tape backup. But in my situation, I would like to plan a DR solution for bl860c so that I would like to use tape backup and recovery solution.
One more reason is off site backup.

Anyway, in my survey, I found some docs as below for two-stpe media recovery.

Ignite-UX Installation Booting (p12. Two-Step Media Recovery)
http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-5274/5992-5274.pdf

Creating a Boot CD/DVD or an Installation DVD
http://docs.hp.com/en/5992-6584/ch14s03.html

Blade limitation:
Itanium(R)-based Blades have no built-in parallel SCSI interfaces and it is not possible to have an add-on parallel SCSI HBA.

It seems support FC/SAS tape drive with two-step media recovery but I have no idea how to verify all components like sas/fc switch, sas/fc controller...etc. for bl860c.

Acturally, I got bad news yesterday that bl860c didn't support SAS DAT 160 tape drive but I would like to know that is there any possibility to use tape or tape library (using sas or fc interface is ok) to make a ignite-ux tape backup/recovery?

Please do me a favor to give me some hints to complete my solution, thank you.

[Shane Seymour]

Test two step recovery - that way you will know for yourself if it works or not.

[Pheroz Tengra]

I also have a system similar to yours, and the two step process -- hp really needs to reconsider this option. The first step in the two step process is to boot from the supplied DVD. The dvd boot process is extremely slow. We eventually created the boot able USB stick ( 4 GB ). The shell script to create one is well documented, and it works.
The USB is connected to the dongle on the front panel of the blade. The boot process through is significantly faster then the DVD route.

Note the ignite tape has to have the same version of ignite as on the os. If the DVD has an older version of ignite and the OS has a newer version -- It will not work.

I am still struggling with creation of the Ignite make_tape_recovery with the -A -v option, and everything works ok. If I use different options, the ignite reports everything created ok, yet when I try to verify what is listed on the tape, it fails to verify.

The verification method that is used is
mt -f fsf 22
tar tvlf .

In the case of the ignite created with -A -v option -- I am able to list the files.

In the case of the ignite created with non ( -A ) option then the creation is successful, and when I go to verify the tape, with the mt command ,it fails.

At this point I dont know if I am doing something wrong, still working on the problem.

[Torsten.]

@Pheroz Tengra:

IMHO backup a blade to tape is not the preferred method, better to use ignite on network.

Believe me, a boot directly from tape (most non-blade server can do this) is even slower than booting from DVD.

Better to boot from network ignite server, in this situation you can also restore from tape.