Second bootable tape with make_recovery, can I ?

[Juan Manuel López]

I use make_recovery ( ignite ) to make the recovery tapes every month, so there is a little problem. I have got only one tape of every machine, so if this tape crash, I can??t recover my system. Is there any posibility to make two copies every time I make a bootable tape with ignite ?

Thanks in advance.

Juanma.

[Donald Kok]

Hi Juanma,

Why don't you put in a new tape, and run make_recovery again?

Greetzz
Donald

[Juan Manuel López]

It is really the easiest way !

[David_246]

Hi Juan,

I'dd definitly think of a cycle of 3 months or so, and than make a backup every week.

Just one tape is never a good idea.

Please think of making it bootable, so in case of a crash you can boot of the tape and it installs automaticly (menu structured).

The command we use for it is :

make_tape_recovery -AIv

Best Regs David

[Michael Tully]

You could create a duplicate if wished, but what's the point, it would be quicker to create a second tape than to duplicate the first one.
I don't have the luxury of two tapes, so I make my Junior Sys admin create 2 per week per system, kept at two data centres. (Good Practise) I also don't have the luxury of an ignite server for my clients.
Here's how I create them
# make_tape_recovery -x inc_entire=vg00 -I -v -a /dev/rmt/0mn
Here's where you can get the latest ignite software.
http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/download.html

[Jean-Louis Phelix]

Yes I agree that having only one tape is not really secure, but you could also keep this unique monthly tape and run additionally make_net_recovery weekly for example. This would give you another kind of backup, and in case you really need a tape (if it's not possible to restore using lan) you could also easily generate a bootable media from your make_net_recovery archive (see /opt/ignite/share/doc/makenetrec.txt). The bad side is that you need an IgniteUX server with some disks ...

Regards.

[T G Manikandan]

1.One thing is,you can create a network archive on to the Ignite server.
From here you can go ahead in creating bootable tapes or CD>

2.create two sets using the normal process

3.you can create a bootable media(CD) same way as creating the tape.

http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000067424718

[Gary L. Paveza, Jr.]

For what it's worth, we usage an offsite vendor to store our tapes. They are picked up and delivered back to us on a given schedule. One of the things that I do is make an ignite tape for every server that goes into every one of our full backup cases. That way, in case of a disaster, when we go to our recovery site and recall our full backups - I have a current ignite tape. It's a royal pain, and requires a lot of effort to make sure each container has a current tape, but it's worth it when there's a problem. We currently have 4 off-site containers - so I end up making 5 copies of every ignite tape (I keep one at my desk at all times).

[Steven E. Protter]

Yes, Juan.

That's the easiest way.

For sure, you need to rotate Ignite tapes to an off site backup. We rotate them on a five week cycle.

Don't want to scare you , but what happens if bin Laden levels your shop melting down all your Ignite tapes.

In the shadow of the Sears Tower(fall down zone we joke) we have been forced to plan for the catastrophic destruction of our building.

Ignite tapes are off site, at least four of them at any one time. For each system.

SEP

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Instead of running Ignite once in a month schedule it for once in week and don't use the same tape every week. Have 5 tapes and use it in rotation.

It's a good practice to run make_tape_recovery once a week rather than once in a month.

[Dario_1]

Juanma

Do the following, make one ignite tape everyweek (let say on Friday), keep them for four weeks and start rotating them on week number five. This way you will always have tapes without having to use new ones and/or the same tape every time you perform an ignite backup.

Regards,

DR