Preparing backup servers

The backup server is an auxiliary host where IBM® Storage Protect Snapshot can mount backups.

For custom applications on GPFS™ file systems, IBM Storage Protect Snapshot does not need any backup servers. For all other environments, a backup server is used to offload the backup image to an IBM Storage Protect server. Sending data to the IBM Storage Protect server happens on the backup server and not on the production server where the protected application is running. You must configure a backup server when you want to offload snapshots to IBM Storage Protect. You can share one backup server among multiple applications or you can have multiple backup servers.

However, IBM Storage Protect Snapshot does not allow backup images to be mounted directly on the production server. A backup server must be set up as a separate host.