Managing backup and restore

You can run backup and restore operations on your system configuration in the IBM® Cloud Pak System Software for Power® environment.

You can run scheduled backups or run backups on demand, and restore backed up data as needed.

Backing up the system

The backup process transfers your system configuration to a specified backup storage server. The initial backup that is run is a baseline backup. Subsequent backups are delta backups. A delta backup is a copy of the system configuration that stores only the changes to the system configuration since the last baseline backup. The system automatically determines the type of backup to run by checking the backup storage server for the presence of a baseline backup. You can create a new baseline backup at any time by configuring the location in the backup and restore system settings.

Before performing a backup operation, you need to complete several steps to configure the system for backup:

Attention: As a limitation when performing backup operations, Cloud Pak System Software for Power does not support the File-Based Backup and Restore function (vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) Backup and Restore function) of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance.

If this is the first time you are performing a backup operation, you must set up and configure at least one backup storage location before you can perform a backup. Setting up a storage location includes the following general tasks:
- Specifying the host, port, and user credentials to access the remote backup system.
- Specifying the directory path on the remote system where backups will be stored.
- Selecting whether or not to enable encryption.
- Specifying certificate and private key settings
- Verifying the network connection to the remote backup system.
You can configure multiple backup storage locations as needed. When you later configure a backup, you can select one of these defined backup locations as the target where the backup is stored. You can also edit and delete existing backup storage configurations.
Important: Ensure that the user account that is used on the backup server has unlimited set for file size:
```
$ ulimit -f
unlimited
```
The backup process will transfer very large files to the backup server. If this value is not unlimited, you must edit /etc/security/limits.conf to configure the fsize so that the backup account is not limited on maximum file sizes.
The output of ulimit -a should resemble the following example:
```
[ ~]$ ulimit -a
core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority             (-e) 0
file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
pending signals                 (-i) 94464
max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 64
max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files                      (-n) 8192
pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority              (-r) 0
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 10240
cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes              (-u) 1024
virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks                      (-x) unlimited
```
Define one or more backup configurations that you will use for automated scheduled backups or for creating backups on demand. Configuring a backup includes the following general tasks:
- Define a name for the backup configuration.
- Select one of the defined backup storage locations where the backup will be written.
- Select the backup type (system backup or component level backup).
- For a component level backup, select one or more component types (cloud groups, virtual applications, images, script packages, etc) to back up.
- Select whether this will be a scheduled backup or if this backup will be initiated on demand as needed.
- For a scheduled backup, define starting and ending dates, start time, and frequency of backup (weekly, etc).
- Enable or disable the backup configuration.

The backup process consists of the following jobs:

Complete System Information Backup 1 of 3: This job initiates the backup process. This job remains in the Running state until the background process is initialized, then the second of the three jobs is queued to start.
Complete System Information Backup 2 of 3: This job prepares the data for backup. New tasks are blocked or placed in a pending state while this job runs to ensure a consistent copy of management databases and other artifacts. After all target data is defined, the third job starts.
Note: There is a delay between the completion of the second job and the start of the third job. This behavior is normal.
Complete System Information Backup 3 of 3: This job compresses, encrypts, and transfers the target data to the specified remote backup system.

The system configuration data on the Platform System Manager and selected component data are included in the system backup. Backup images that are stored on an external backup storage server are encrypted to protect sensitive data, allowing only trusted parties to view the backup image. You can decrypt the backup image only by using the private key, and only on the Cloud Pak System Software for Power hardware.

When you configure your settings for email notification, the system sends an email that provides status information about complete or incomplete backup jobs.

Restoring the system from a backup

You can perform some limited restore tasks to selectively restore system and workload data. Typically you might need to restore a backed up artifact that was inadvertently deleted or corrupted on your system.

If you had selected one or more component types to include in your backup data, you can use the restore features under the System Backup and Restore settings to restore one or more of these components as needed. You can specify to restore from any available backup location, or you can connect to the backup location for another Cloud Pak System Software for Power instance as an alternate backup location. Then you can select one or more component types (virtual images, workload configurations, add-ons, script packages, patterns, etc) and then select one or more artifacts from the available list to restore. Note that certain component types, such as system plug-ins, do not support in place restores (that is, restoring an artifact that still exists on the system but is restored back to a previous state).

When data is restored, anything that was added or changed since the last delta backup was taken is not included in the restored environment.

Note: The system restore does not restore the actual workloads (VMs) and other contents in the VMware datastore like OS images. It only restores the IBM Workload Deployer (IWD) file system content under the /drouter folder, StoreHouse (SH) files, IWD script packages, IWD VM configuration information, Cloud Pak System data and logs, and all PSM (Platform System Manager) databases.

You can also use CLI scripts to selectively restore system and workload data. For more information, see the related links.

Only an IBM service representative can perform the system level restore process, by using the backup archives. The system level restore procedure includes extracting the data from the backup storage server, decrypting the backup information, and verifying the integrity of the data by using the metadata present in the backup data.