Verify the DB2 system

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Ensure that the following structure is in place before you install and use IBM® Storage Protect Snapshot.

The DB2® configuration must have the following structure:
  • At least one volume group for each database partition that contains table spaces and the local database directory.
  • At least one volume group for each database partition that contains database log files.
  • Data must be on file systems that are supported.
  • Database log files and database data must be contained in separate independent file sets or in separate file systems in an IBM DB2 pureScale® environment. Unless stated otherwise, the term file set can be interchanged with volume group when describing the DB2 structure.

IBM Storage Protect Snapshot supports DB2 Database Partitioning Feature (DPF) environments, where data of multiple logical partitions are within a single volume group. This setting is referred to as volume sharing, see the PARTITION_GROUP parameter for more details. With volume sharing, the partitions sharing volume groups cannot be restored individually. In this case, the granularity of the restore operation is defined by PARTITION_GROUP.

Any other data that is stored on the volume groups is processed and included in the backup image. When you restore a backup image, the whole backup image is restored. Therefore, any data on the file system that is updated or created after the backup is taken is overwritten. To ensure that nothing is overwritten unintentionally, do not store any other data in the data and log volume groups.

For DB2 pureScale, any additional files that are stored in log file sets and data file sets are included in the backup. When you restore a backup image, extra files and nested file sets are overwritten. To avoid overwriting, do not store any other files in log file sets or database data file sets. Ensure that you do not link independent file sets containing unrelated data in file sets that participate in snapshots.

Extra files that are not associated with the database backup operation, but are stored in the volume groups, can cause the backup to fail. Use the NEGATIVE_LIST parameter in the profile to control the processing of these files. For information about this parameter, see the CLIENT profile section for details.

IBM Storage Protect Snapshot processes table spaces, the local database directory, and log files. The volume group layout for DB2 is detailed in the Pre-installation Checklist.

The hardware and software requirements for IBM Storage Protect Snapshot for UNIX™ and Linux™ are published in the following technote: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21427692. Follow the link to the requirements technote for your specific release or update level. From there you will find the Pre-installation Checklist and the Installation Planning Worksheet for the most recent version of the product.

IBM Storage Protect Snapshot does not support a volume and storage layout where a single database partition is spread across multiple storage devices. In an AIX® logical volume manager mirroring environment, each mirror must be located within a separate storage cluster.

To offload backups from this environment to the server, IBM Storage Protect Snapshot requires DB2 and the DB2 instance to be installed on a backup server. This server must be configured to ensure that the topology of the production and backup server are the same. The number of DB2 partitions and DB2 partition numbers must be identical on the production and backup server. However, the DB2 partitions on the backup server can be consolidated into one backup server even if the production database is spread across multiple hosts.