Backup Strategies

[Kurtkarl]

HI,

We???re in the process creating a backup strategy for our primary server and the Informix databases on it. We have two machines here. The first one, a production machine which is an N-class with hpux 11.0, 12gb of memory, 360 mhz of processor and has about 80 gb disk array hard drive with Raid 0. The second machine, a test machine which is a K-class with hpux 11.0, 3.75 gb of memory, 180 mhz of processor and has about 20 gb of disk array hard drive.

Now my boss wants a 100% uptime and doesn???t care much of the data loss in case of hardware failure. We were given a small budget allocation by the management for this project. Now, what would you recommend atleast the least expensive solution without having the need to buy a new machine just to replicate the primary server. Now were thinking of replicating the machine by using the K class machine and upgrade some of it???s components such as memory, disk and etc. With the limited budget (within $50,000 range which we still need to consider getting another Informix license for the backup machine, hw upgrades and etc.)

In short, are there any other approach that we may consider base from the budget that was allocated and make use of the spare machine? If we replicate the primary server having the same hostname, ip, partitions and etc isn't that it wont work if these two machines are up on the same network with same name? if disk mirroring, what if the server itself went down? if Raid 5, again what if the server itself went down? if NFS the applications, will it affects performance due to network?

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Joey

[Christopher McCray_1]

I'm sorry to say that if your boss wants 100% uptime, it will cost $$$. We have dumped a lot of money into some of our production environments and are still not 100% protected against failures, but enough for what we want. You can implement MC/ServiceGuard on the two machines as it supports multple platform types within its cluster. The uptime wouldn't be 100%, but dramatically increased. The subject is too big to get into as it involves disk and network upgrades. If your boss doesn't think it's cost-effective, you are at the mercy of your tape backups.

Please don't shoot the messenger.

Good luck
Chris

[Mark Greene_1]

the K-class box is not going to do anywhere near the performance of the N-class, no matter how much hardware you stuff into it. the cpu and disk architectural differences alone rapidly send us to that conclusion.

the only way you are going to achieve garuanteed 100% uptime is to have a second N-class server of exactly the same hardware configuration that you replicate the informix data to continuously (you don't have nearly enuogh disk to justify a SAN or NAS storage solution). and even then it's not going to be 100%, because your users will still have to reconnect to the second server, *and* you are going to have to have some mechanism for having the second system automatically assume the ip and dns/nis name of the primary system.

trying to do this with the K-class may work, but it is not going to support anywhere near the number of users that the N-class box will.

have you checked-out HP's Service Guard software, which does this sort of thing? I would think that issues of cross-class compatibility would be addressed in the documentation.

HTH, good luck
mark