Disaster Recovery Manager (DRM)

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Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) has a add-on package to support Bare Metal Recovery. This feature allows you to restore your entire environment automatically if you have an automatic tape library or the application will prompt you for the exact tapes for input that are required during the restore process otherwise. You can restore your environment to the last second TSM was up or until the last successful DB backup. This is determined by the client based on their business needs.

If you're doing a Bare Metal Recovery offsite then it's usually done using the last successful DB backup of your environment. As part of DRM, daily the application copies data that was written to disk and/or tape to a copypool. The TSM DB is backed up daily and sent offsite with the copypool tapes. A copy of the volume history files and configuration files are backed up to tape or diskette daily and sent offsite as well or you can copy them to another server @ another location.

If you're rebuilding a server then you don't need the data on tape offsite as the primary copies are in the library already so you'd execute "restore db". The application will use the last successful DB backup and restore it. Then it will roll the DB forward until the last second it was up using the recovery logs. You must have the DB set to roll forward in the server configuration or it will only recover the backups and all activity until the last successful DB backup.

Backup the DB daily as you see it's not an option. It can be backed up to tape or disk. If a disaster should occur then you'd execute the following steps to restore your environment for a Bare Metal Recovery offsite:

• Install and configure the OS manually or via mksysb for AIX or other OS backup utility such as tar, etc.
• Install TSM server and client code with patches. There should be a copy of these CDs with your vault vendor as part of your disaster recovery plan.
• Copy all volume history and configuration files from tape or diskette to the server and client directories. (/usr/tivoli/tsm/server/bin for the server and /usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin for the client.)
  Configuration files consist of:
  • SERVER: /usr/tivoli/tsm/server/bin dsmserv.opt volumehistory file (naming convention based on what is in dsmserv.opt)
  • CLIENT: dsm.opt dsm.sys inclexcl.txt
• Restore the TSM DB via the restore db cmd. If you have an automated tape library then the application will mount the last DB tape in the volume history file and restore the DB.