topic Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT in Operating System - OpenVMS

Backing up to NAS or DLT

Mike Poole_1 — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:08:00 GMT

We are running OVMS 7.3-2 and currently do a disk-to-disk backup on our data disk to the RAID and then create a manual tape backup.

All of our other servers are Windows and get backed up to NAS and/or our DLT.

Since our DLT and NAS are from another vendor and we cannot mount them over the network, is it possible to create our usual d-2-d backup and then FTP the image over to the tape library?

Our goal is to do away with having people coming in at night, putting in the tape on the server, running the backup, taking the tapes over to another site for security etc. etc.

It's probably a simple solution, but any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

Robert Gezelter — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:35:01 GMT

Mike,

So long as you generate a sequential BACKUP saveset, and then use a recent version of ZIP (one that you can preserve the VMS file attributes in), I do not see a problem (I do similar things all the time).

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

Mike Poole_1 — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:40:03 GMT

Is there a better way of doing it that I am missing?

I wasn't sure if we could do BACKUP right over the network without mounting the tape library.

Thanks!

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

Robert Gezelter — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:43:49 GMT

Mike,

I am not sure that I understand you.

The tape library is a black box to your VMS system (it cannot be used as a tape).

So:

- Using VMS BACKUP write a saveset
- using INFOZIP create a ZIP archive of the saveset, preserving the RMS file attributes
- FTP the saveset to a disk that is to be backed up to the tape library
- voila!

You do have to be careful to transfer the ZIP archive in BINARY mode, but that is not generally a problem.

If you need to get files from the backup, you reverse the process.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

Mike Poole_1 — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:45:05 GMT

That sounds great!

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

Steven Schweda — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:24:15 GMT

Re: Zip

Note that the latest released Zip is version
2.31, and you _really_ don't want anything
older. (UnZip 5.52 is current on that side.)
If you need these, start at:

http://www.info-zip.org/

If your compressed archive size exceeds 2GB,
you actually want something newer, as Zip 2.x
lacks large-file capability. Zip 3 and
UnZip 6 have large-file capability (non-VAX),
but have not been (finished or) released yet.
Pre-release BETA source kits for Zip 3.0e and
UnZip 6.00c should be available at:

ftp://ftp.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/OLD/beta/

They seem to be pretty trouble-free so far,
but complaints are always welcome.

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

David Jones_21 — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 11:44:50 GMT

You could also consider using the virtual tape library I posted in thread
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=965502 so the data would go to the NAS directly without intermediate copies of the savesets and its zipped form.

Depending up how much of an 'appliance' the NAS is, the library program would run either directly on the NAS or on a windows machine that can connect to the NAS.

Re: Backing up to NAS or DLT

Jan van den Ende — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:05:08 GMT

Mike,

it is also possible to FTP a saveset.
But you have to do a DIR/FULL of it, and record the LongestRecordLength.
tranfer in binary.
Then (or after a restore and transfer back) do a
$ SET FILE /attri=(rfm:fix,lrl=

Size only limited by the used FTP(s), and diskspace.

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe