Backing up and recovering the application serving environment

The product uses many operating system and application resources that you should consider adding to your backup and recovery procedures.

About this task

[IBM i]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
    • [IBM i]Administrative configuration
    • [IBM i]Servlet configuration files
    • [IBM i]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.
    This category covers the applications you run using the product. You should back these up the same way you back up other applications on your system. You could backup these resources every time you add or change an application, or include these resources in a regularly scheduled backup.
    • Application deployment configuration files
    • [IBM i]Administrative configuration
    • [IBM i]Servlet source and class files
    • [IBM i]JSP source and generated class files
    • [IBM i]Deployed enterprise bean jar files
  • 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
    • [IBM i]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.