sssu snap copy best practices

[Fidel Ramirez_1]

We have one SAN EVA 8100 with one big diskgroup.

There are about 20 HP-UX boxes with different HW flavors: rp7410, rx2600, rx2800, Integrity BL860c i2, rp3440, etc.

They are running HP-UX 11.11, HP-UX 11.23 and HP-UX 11.31.

When doing a full cold backup on HP-UX systems running any Database, an sssu script is used to snap copy the DB luns.

These luns are used to create new VGs with LVvs and filesystems; and then the backup software backups these new filesystems.

The steps I’m using are the following:

Deactivate snap-copy volume groups from last backup

 VG export snap-copy volume groups from last backup

 Remove snap-copy vdisks from last backup

 Stop applications

 Unmount application filesystems

 Deactivate application volume groups

 Create snap-clone for application volume groups

 Activate application volume groups

 Mount application filesystems

 Start applications

 Create snap-copy volume groups

 Activate snap-copy volume groups

 Mount snap-copy filesystems 

 Start backup of snap-copy filesystems

I’m duplicating the application space on the SAN using snap copy to clone its luns.

I can provide the script I’m using to give more details.

Is this the way others are using to cold backup DB filesystems?

I’m open to other ways this could be done, for example snapshot.

I know some people use snapshots.

Which one is better? Pros and cons on these two methods.

Is there a best practices way of doing things?

Thank you,

Fidel