Scheduling backups using IBM Storage Protect scheduler

The IBM Storage Protect scheduler typically utilizes the IBM Storage Protect Backup-Archive client backup commands that should be avoided in the IBM Storage Scale setup. Instead, you can configure the IBM Storage Protect client schedule to call a script as described in the following steps.

For scheduled events to occur on the client, you must configure the client scheduler to communicate with the IBM Storage Protect server. This is in addition to the following steps. For example, you might need to start the dsmcad service or add MANAGEDSERVICES schedule to the corresponding IBM Storage Protect stanza in dsm.sys on the client node. For more information, see Configuring the scheduler in the IBM Storage Protect documentation.

For the following steps, these example values are assumed:

client-node-proxyname (asnodename)              => proxy-cluster1
Node to be used for the schedule (aka nodename) => gpfs-node1
tsm server name                                 => tsm1
file system to be backed up                     => gpfs0
global snapshot name (created for backup job)   => BKUPsnap
schedule name on the TSM server                 => proxy-cluster1_sched
  1. On the IBM Storage Protect server, define the schedule using the following command:

    define schedule standard proxy-cluster1_sched type=client action=command objects=/usr/bin/my-mmbackup-script.sh starttime=05:00:00 startdate=today

  2. On the IBM Storage Protect server, associate the schedule with the IBM Storage Scale proxy node using the following command: 
    define association standard proxy-cluster1_sched proxy-cluster1
  3. Create the backup script on the IBM Storage Scale node.
    Note: The following example script must be extended to log the output into files so that verification or troubleshooting can be done afterward. Additional options such as --noquote might be needed depending on the specific needs of the environment.
    #!/bin/bash
/usr/lpp/mmfs/bin/mmcrsnapshot gpfs0 BKUPsnap
/usr/lpp/mmfs/bin/mmbackup gpfs0 –t incremental –-tsm-servers tsm1
/usr/lpp/mmfs/bin/mmdelsnapshot gpfs0 BKUPsnap
  4. On one of the IBM Storage Protect client nodes, verify the schedule using the following command: 
    dsmc q sched