Setting up remote systems for backup and restore

When performing backup and restore operations, consider these recommendations for setting up the remote systems that will contain the backup data for your environment.

If you are planning to perform backup and restore operations for your Cloud Pak System environment, you will need to plan for one or more remote backup systems that will be used to store the backup data on a regular basis, and which must be available to perform restore operations as needed.

This backup system is typically configured as a proxy that acts as a bridge to your backup disks on a SAN or on some other storage media.

You should plan to use a remote backup system that has the following general characteristics:
  • The system should run a supported version of Linux, AIX, or Windows operating systems.
  • The system should be configured for secure shell (SSH) protocol capability to accept connections and transfer data from remote systems.
  • If your backup server is running a Windows operating system, ensure that Cygwin and OpenSSHD are also installed on the backup server.
  • The system should have adequate CPU and memory to support at least five concurrent SCP file transfers, each with a minimum transfer rate of 750 KB/s.
  • The system should have the following commands available: awk, cat, chmod, cut, date, df, du, find, grep, head, ls, mkdir, pwd, rm, sh, uname, ulimit, wc

The backup and restore process includes a dynamic estimation of the amount of storage needed for each backup. Space considerations depend on the amount of data being backed up. If you receive messages during backup operations that indicate there is not enough space to contain the data, you can adjust your system and your backup profiles as needed, by adding more storage, reducing the amount of data that is backed up, or pruning older data backups that are no longer needed.