Backing up the Virtual I/O Server

The Virtual I/O Server contains the following types of information that you need to back up: the Virtual I/O Server itself and user-defined virtual devices.

• The Virtual I/O Server includes the base code, applied fix packs, custom device drivers to support disk subsystems, and some user-defined metadata. All of this information is backed up when you use the backupios command. In situations where you plan to restore the Virtual I/O Server to the same system from which it was backed up, then backing up only the Virtual I/O Server itself is usually sufficient.
• User-defined virtual devices include metadata, like virtual devices mappings, that define the relationship between the physical environment and the virtual environment. This data can be saved to a location that is automatically backed up when you use the backupios command. In situations where you plan to restore the Virtual I/O Server to a new or different system (for example, in the event of a system failure or disaster), then you must back up both the Virtual I/O Server and user-defined virtual devices. Furthermore, in these situations, you must also back up the following components of your environment in order to fully recover your Virtual I/O Server configuration:
  • External device configurations, such as Storage Area Network (SAN) devices.
  • Resources defined on the Hardware Management Console (HMC), such as processor and memory allocations. This means backing up your HMC partition profile data for the Virtual I/O Server and its client partitions.
  • The operating systems and applications running in the client logical partitions.

You can back up and restore the Virtual I/O Server as follows: