You can use a copy storage rule to automatically copy data from an IBM
Storage Protect server to tape volumes that you can store offsite.
The tape copy provides daily, air-gapped protection and can be used to recover data if a disaster
occurs. To help ensure that the data can be recovered, review the guidelines and configure your
storage environment accordingly.
Before you begin
To plan for disaster recovery, review the guidelines about server configuration:
| Server configuration |
Considerations and actions |
| Single IBM
Storage Protect server with second copy
on tape
In this configuration, client data is ingested to a single IBM
Storage Protect server.
|
If you are using a single IBM
Storage Protect server
without using replication, you can use a storage rule to copy container storage pool data on your
server to a copy storage pool on tape. By creating a tape copy of your container storage pool, you
will have two copies of the data:
|
| Multisite replication with an air-gapped third copy on tape In this configuration,
client data is ingested to a replication source server and replicated to a target replication
server.
|
If you are using two replication servers, you can use a storage rule to copy container
storage pool data on the target replication server to create a third copy on tape. In this way, you
will have multiple copies of the data to store at multiple sites:
|
About this task
Use copy storage rules to automatically copy data from a directory-container storage pool
or on-premises cloud-container storage pool to a copy storage pool on tape, creating an air-gapped
copy of your container storage pools that can be stored offsite. If a disaster occurs, you can
restore data to your clients by using the tape copy. When you use a copy storage rule to create a
tape copy, the
IBM
Storage Protect server automatically fails
over to the tape copy storage pool if the server finds damaged objects, containers, or data extents
or detects that data is unavailable in the directory-container storage pool.
Restriction: Copy storage rules are designed to create an air-gapped copy of your data for disaster recovery,
not for repairing container storage pools. You cannot use the RESTORE STGPOOL or
REPAIR STGPOOL commands to repair or restore data in a container storage pool
from the target storage pool on tape. Instead, you can restore the client data from tape volumes,
and then reingest the data into the container storage pool from the client.
Procedure
- Define a copy storage rule to create a backup tape copy of a container storage pool.
Schedule the backup to run within the daily lifecycle of the server. For instructions, see Defining a copy storage rule.
When you define the copy storage rule, take one of
the following actions:
- To back up a container storage pool from the target replication server to tape, define a copy
storage rule on the target replication server and specify the container storage pool on the target
replication server as the source storage pool.
- To back up a container storage pool from a single server to tape, define a copy storage rule on
the server.
- Configure disaster recovery manager (DRM) to rotate the tape volumes offsite. By default,
copy storage pools are enabled for DRM. For instructions about configuring DRM, see Disaster recovery manager (V7.1.1).
Attention: Confirm that the reclamation threshold for your offsite copy storage pool is
set to 0. If you rotate the tape volumes offsite, set the reclamation threshold to 0 so that tape
volumes are brought back onsite only when they are empty. In this way, you can ensure that there is
always a copy of the data stored offsite. If the reclamation threshold is set to a value other than
0, data can be permanently lost if both the primary storage pool and the tape volumes are lost or
damaged while the tape volumes are rotated onsite.
- Protect the metadata for your tape copy storage pool. When the copy storage rule runs,
data from the container storage pool is copied to tape volumes without the associated metadata. This
metadata is required to restore a primary site if a disaster occurs. To protect the metadata, you
must separately back up the server database along with its volume history, server options, and
device configuration files. If you use reclamation with copy storage pools that have offsite tape
volumes, ensure that the following requirements are met to provide disaster recovery
protection:
- Database backup operations run after the scheduled processes for storage pool protection and DRM
are completed.
- All database backup volumes and DRM volumes are taken offsite together.
For instructions about backing up the server database and related files, see Defining schedules
for server maintenance activities.