Best practices for backing up your data

The different categories of data in the system require different methods of backup.

You should perform the following best practices regularly to ensure that current backups exist for the entire system, workload configurations, and application artifacts:
  1. Run system backup and include component backup. Schedule it in Cloud Pak System to be automatically performed every day.
  2. Implement scripts to create the components for the cloud environment. The scripts and their properties files should be kept in a software configuration management (SCM) system in a well-known location that is part of the backup of the entire system.
  3. Export all workload components (at least those that are not part of the system backup's component export). Then, each time you edit a component, export that particular version. You can also export all components on a regular (daily or weekly) basis.
  4. For each pattern instance with content in a virtual machine, perform a file system or database backup of that content. Perform this on a regular (daily or weekly) basis.

System backup

System backup is a Cloud Pak System feature that captures the system's management data, cloud environment, and workload catalog. It also has an option to export workload components separately. It is performed in the console or from the command-line interface (CLI).

Configuration scripts

The cloud environment can be created using appropriate CLI scripts. Scripts make recreating all or parts of it easy and reliable, and they can be stored in SCM and shared among multiple systems. The scripts create the IP groups and cloud groups, using a properties file passed in as a parameter to provide most of the settings.
  • IP group settings: For an IP group, the settings are typically different for every instance. An IP group is not dependent on any other components.
  • Cloud group settings: For a cloud group, most of its settings are different for every instance. Two key subcomponents are compute nodes, which must be specified by serial number, and IP groups, which must be specified by name.

The script customization is captured in properties files, typically one property file for each cloud component instance.

Exporting workload components

You can use the console or appropriate CLI scripts to export workload components into files that can then be imported on the same or another system to re-create the components. For backup purposes, the main level of component that needs to be exported is the individual pattern, which can also include export of subcomponents related to the pattern, such as script packages and plug-ins.

All patterns contain virtual images, which can be exported but can be quite large. A good practice is to avoid modifying virtual images, so that you do not need to back up the new versions.

Backing up application data

Business applications deployed into production require their application data to be backed up. This process preserves the state of the application so that if it has to be redeployed, its state can be restored. Typically the state in enterprise databases of record is not included, because those databases are shared by multiple applications and are backed up separately. This backup does include all data unique to an individual application that would be lost if the application had to be reinstalled, such as the application databases, transaction logs, external configuration data, user session data (if sessions can be restored), and so on.

The backup of application data is typically specific for every application, depending on its architecture and what (if any) middleware servers (such as application servers, databases, messaging systems, and so on) that it runs in or uses. Generalized backup solutions for enterprise applications, such as Tivoli Storage Manager, can be configured to perform the backup. These solutions are typically installed as an agent in the same operating system as the middleware, and are customized for that middleware to back up its data stores, configuration, and logs. The agent must also be configured to connect to a central backup server that stores the backups.

Broad support is available for backup solutions that rely on an agent that is installed on the operating system of individual virtual machines that are deployed on IBM® Cloud Pak System. However, the only supported backup solution that integrates with the VMware vSphere stack is IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments. It does not rely on an operating system agent on each virtual machine that is deployed on IBM Cloud Pak System. For more information about backing up with IBM Spectrum Protect, see Backing up virtual machines using IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for VMware and Configuring external application access.

The space and time estimation in the backup profile window is only an estimation based on a typical system and network configurations. In general, make sure that you have two times more than the amount of space that is mentioned in your backup and restore estimate widget. If there are space issues, then the system and component backups can fail. The backup and restore logs show the exact space that is required in the backup host server.