The product uses many operating system and application
resources that you should consider adding to your backup and recovery
procedures.
About this task
Save and restore of WebSphere® Application Server resources uses
the same IBM® i commands used
for other IBM i resources.
WebSphere Application Server resources can
be saved while the product environment is active. When backing up
database data, you may have to shut down some or all services if a
snapshot cannot be obtained. This would occur if there are requests
which obtain locks or have open transactions against the database
being saved. In a distributed environment, you may need to consider
how to get a consistent backup across several systems. If the data
on systems is not closely related to data on other systems, you may
be able to backup each system in isolation. If you need a snapshot
across systems simultaneously, you may need to stop activity on all
systems while the snapshot is taken.
How often you back up resources
depends largely on when or how often you expect them to change.
Procedure
- Back up your product environment configuration.
This category covers the resources that define your
WebSphere Application Server operating environment.
Once you have done initial setup, this information should change very
infrequently. You might backup this information only when you change
these settings, and not include these resources in regularly scheduled
backups.
- Administrative configuration files
- Administrative configuration
- Servlet configuration files
- Security properties files
- HTTP configuration (see the documentation for your web server)
Avoid trouble: If you
are using the IBM Installation Manager to manage product installations,
it is recommended that you backup the Installation Manager IMShared,
and DataAgent directories at the same date and time, especially before
and after applying fix packs, ifixes or any installation that is being
done using the Installation Manager. Similarly if you do a restore
of your product environment configuration, it is recommended that
you restore the Installation Manager IMShared, and DataAgent directories
at the same time such that the time frame of the two restores matches.
- Back up your applications.
- Back up your application data.
This category
covers the data stores used by your
WebSphere Application Server applications.
Unless your applications serve only static information, these resources
are usually quite dynamic. You should back these up the same way you
back up other business data on your system. These resources are suited
for inclusion in a regularly scheduled backup.
- Servlet session data
- Enterprise bean data in a database
What to do next
If your applications are using other resources or services
that are external to the product, remember to include those in your
backup plan as well.