Tips on using the appliance

Backup

It is important to back up your appliance frequently. To back up the appliance, use the snapshot facility that is provided by the appliance.

A snapshot is a copy of the state of the appliance at a certain time. By using snapshot files, you can back up your appliance and restore the appliance later. It is a good practice to take snapshots regularly and download them from the appliance to serve as backups. However, snapshots can consume much disk space and as such it is best to clean up the old snapshots regularly.

For details about working with snapshots, see Managing snapshots.

Session timeouts

Save your configuration updates in the local management interface (LMI) regularly to avoid any data loss in the event of a session timeout.

LMI sessions expire after the duration of time that is specified by the Session Timeout field on the Administrator Settings page. When a session timeout occurs, any unsaved data on the current page is lost.

Disk space usage

The disk space in a hardware appliance is limited by the capacity of the installed hard disk. Certain files can use up a significant amount of disk space over time. Such files typically include:

Support files

Support files are used by IBM® support personnel to troubleshoot problems with the appliance. The support files contain all log files, temporary and intermediate files, and command output that is needed to diagnose customer support problems. The size of these files can grow large over time. To reduce the disk space that is occupied by these files, download unused support files to an external drive. Then, delete the support files from the appliance. For detailed instructions, see Managing support files.

Snapshot files

Snapshot files record the state that the appliance is in at a certain time. They can be used to restore the appliance to a previous state. The snapshot files are stored on the appliance by default. To reduce the disk space that is used, you can download the snapshot files to an external drive and then delete them from the appliance. For detailed instructions, see Managing snapshots.

The administrator must monitor the remaining free disk space, and take the necessary actions to ensure that there is adequate disk space. The appliance provides a Disk Usage dashboard widget for administrators to monitor the current disk usage. For more information about managing disk space, see Viewing disk usage.

Data at rest encryption