Hot imaging of Linux servers?

[Sarah Nordstrom]

Are there any products that integrate with HP SIM for hot/online imaging of RHEL servers? We are currently using ICE-Linux, but this requires shutting the server down for imaging.

[Mitchell Kulberg]

Sarah,

I don't think I understand what you are looking for. If you are imaging a node, doesn't that mean it has to be down?

Theoretically, you could have two disks, be booted from one and image the other and boot that disk. but that still requires shutting down and rebooting.

Can you explain more please?

Mitch

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

http://www.acronis.com
http://www.mondorescue.org

Both products, the first paid for, the second open source perform system imaging while the system is live.

SEP

[Sarah Nordstrom]

To Steven: Do these products integrate with HP SIM though? That was specifically what I was looking for. We manage everything else via SIM/ICE-Linux, so it would be nice to keep imaging there too.

To Mitchell: Products like Acronis True Image claim to be able to do this online (though I haven't tested this out yet).

[Rigoberto Corujo]

Hi Sarah,

So we have a clear understanding of what you're looking for, are you looking to capture an image from a running system or deploy an image to a running system?

Thank you.

Rigoberto

[Sarah Nordstrom]

Capture an image from a running system. This would be for recovery purposes, so we wouldn't ever need to deploy an image to a running system.

[Mitchell Kulberg]

Hi Sarah,

We discussed this for a while at our last meeting. At this time, ICE-Linux doesn't do on-line capture. It is something we might consider for the future, but in general, there are obviously issues that could arise from capturing a running system with running applications. I don't think anything else inside of SIM can do this.

Mitch

[Sarah Nordstrom]

Just as a follow-up, we ended up writing a set of Custom Tools to take and restore images while systems are up using MondoImage.