Can Ignite server do a cold install to itself?

[Jeffrey Davis_1]

Hi fellow ignitee's,
My question is as follows:
If at my disaster recovery site I have only 1 HP-9000 server machine, and that machine happens to be my ignite server, can I have the ignite server do a cold install to itself?
Can I have the ignite server be the recipient or target of the install of my production system?
I need to understand this in order to figure our if I need to maintain two seperate systems at my recovery site. Nothing that I have read into thus far has indicated whether this is possible or not.

Thanks a bunch.

[Patrick Wallek]

You could set the system at your DR site to be the target for an installation from your production Ignite server and you could use the image from your ignite server to restore to your target at DR. If you have network connectivity to do an install, then you will have to give your new machine a new name and IP address.

Is this a realistic test though? If something happens and your ignite server goes away, then how would you install the machine at your DR site? My personal feeling is that you should be doing a make_recovery tape of your ignite server and then use this tape to recover the server at your DR site. If you have everything set up appropriately, then all your backups from the ignite server could be in VG00 and thus get backed up onto tape. Then they would all be there when you recover the new machine from the tape.

[Dave Wherry]

During the install all of your lvm structures get wiped out. If the process would even start, all of your ignite data would be wiped out by the install before it could complete the install.
I agree with using a make_recovery tape.

[Jeffrey Davis_1]

Let me try to clarify my question a bit more.
I have a 9000-server at my DR site.
The DR site is isolated from the rest of my environment. No networking is possible.
I have an Ignite server back in the office.
For the sake of not having to pay for two servers at my DR site, the server at the DR site will also have Ignite server loaded on it.

In the event of an emergency what is the best approach using Ignite, in a single server DR environment, in order to recover my production system again.
Remember I will only have one machine at the DR site. So Ignite server will need to be loaded on that machine. If Ignite server is on that machine, can I have Ignite point to itself (same machine) to do the recovery to?
I am told in some crowds that it is possible to use the machine that Ignite server is running on to do a full recovery to itself?
I find no supporting evidence of this however, and since Ignite will wipe the lvm and disk structures out during installation of my production system configuration, how could this be possible?
Thanks again in advance.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

If you just have one machine at your DR site, I would concentrate on making it your production machine and not worry about trying to make it your Ignite server.

You will not be able to have your ignite server reload itself. I just don't see how that would work. I don't think it can work. It would have to reboot itself to start the load from the image, but how then is it going to get to the image?

I don't know what kind of machine your ignite server is, but something to consider would be to see if you can get some sort of HP workstation class machine, B, C or J class maybe, and have that be your Ignite server at DR and then use that to reload your production machine.

I would also seriously look at doing a make_recovery to TAPE of your production machine and then use that tape to restore your machine in case of problems.

I think that with the scenario you describe, that is all you can do.