Newbie Backup Question

[Scott Frye_1]

We are implementing our very first Serviceguard application (HP-UX 11.i). We are using Syncsort's BackupExpress for our backups (v2.1.5D). The data will reside on an EMC Clariion CX600 SAN.

Never working with clusters before, we are looking for best practices for backups. We want to do full backups of the server(s). Do I back up each server individually? My understanding is we will have an IP address (and host name) that can talk to either server depending on if one is live or not. Do I point my backup software to that IP address or to the physical IP address assigned to the boxes?

Any help or guidelines would be greately appreciated.

Thanks

Scott

[John Poff]

Hi Scott,

We have MC/SG clusters here. We assign a package IP to our main packages, and an package hostname to that package IP address. We just use the hostname to backup the system files and the application data, but in separate backup sessions.

You could backup the system files (vg00, etc.) using the node hostname and backup the application data files using the package IP/hostname. That way, your backup session should find the data files no matter which node is running the package. We use Omniback/DataProtector, and I think we played with using the package hostname but the software didn't like it too much.

JP

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi Scott,

Two ways of doing it.

Backup the systems with the stationary IPs with all the filesystems. On the failover server where the filesystems are not mounted, only the mount points will be backed up.

Another way is to backup the systems with stationary IPs but backup only standalone filesystems. However, backup the serviceguarded filesystems through the floating IP.

For me procedure1 looks simple except that you have to have a record of the state of the packages.

-Sri

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Well most 'Enterprise' backup solutions (NetBackup, Data Protector) support the concept of a 'virtual backup node', that is a backup client associated with your floating IP address, rather than with either client. This allows you to backup local filesystems with the node, and shared file systems wherever they happen to be. WHilst it looks like Syncsort has some concept of this, I see no mentione of Serviceguard support on their website:

http://www.syncsort.com/bex/clustering.htm

So you may need to adopt the approach discussed above.

HTH

Duncan

[lawrenzo · Accepted solution]

We have just moved away from syncsort backup express due to the size of our env but form my experience with the software;

configure the host with host name and ip address on the master server.

configure a backup job to include the filesystem for that particular server in the cluster

do the same for the other server in the cluster as the file system can still be seen through the gui on the backup option

Backup express will backup all directory's selected under the job therefor if the filesystem is mounted on the secondary server - the data will be backed up here and attempt to backup on the primary but there should be no data to backup.

hope this helps.

[Steven E. Protter]

Backup strategy depends on downtowm tolerance.

If now downtime is acceptable, then hot backups of the data are the way to go. I'd add in a regular schedule of make_tape_recovery on the individual nodes, vg00 only.

Database recovery is much easier if you can recover from a cold backup. A cold backup is taken while the database is down.

Of course this takes time and nobody wants to take the time. Consider an OnlineJFS snapshot backup if you have a license to OnlineJFS. It lets you down the database quick and then bring it up. New writes go to a tempory logical volume, letting you get a cold copy of the original logical volume.

With the right tools and strategy you can get a good backup set and be well protected.

SEP

[Scott Frye_1]

lawrenzo,

From what I am hearing we will have an IP on our internal network point to either box (whichever is live at that time). Each box will have a 10.x.x.x IP physically assigned to it. Are you telling me I need to assign the 10.x.x.x IP as a host in BEX or do I assign our internal IP to BEX?