Backing up the Virtual I/O Server

The VIOS contains the following types of information that you need to back up: the VIOS itself and user-defined virtual devices.

• The VIOS includes the base code, applied fix packs, custom device drivers to support disk subsystems, and some user-defined metadata. All this information is backed up when you use the backupios command.
• User-defined virtual devices include metadata, like virtual devices mappings, that define the relationship between the physical environment and the virtual environment. You can back up user-defined virtual devices in one of the following ways:
  • You can back up user-defined virtual devices by using the viosbr command. Use this option in situations where you plan to restore the configuration information to the same VIOS partition from which it was backed up.
  • You can back up user-defined virtual devices by saving the data to a location that is automatically backed up when you use the backupios command to back up the VIOS. Use this option in situations where you plan to restore the VIOS to a new or different system. (For example, in the event of a system failure or disaster.) Furthermore, in these situations, you must also back up the following components of your environment. Back up these components to fully recover your VIOS configuration:
    • External device configurations, such as storage area network (SAN) devices.
    • Resources that are defined on the Hardware Management Console (HMC), such as processor and memory allocations. In other words, back up your HMC partition profile data for the VIOS and its client partitions.
    • The operating systems and applications that run in the client logical partitions.

You can back up and restore the VIOS as follows.