Backup considerations for using IBM Spectrum Protect

If you are planning to use IBM Spectrum Protect to back up IBM Spectrum Scale file systems, some considerations apply.

Considerations for provisioning IBM Spectrum Protect servers to handle backup of IBM Spectrum Scale file systems
When backing up IBM Spectrum Scale file systems, the IBM Spectrum Protect server must be configured with adequate resources to handle a much larger load of client data, sessions, and mount points than typically encountered with single-user file systems such as workstations.
IBM Spectrum Protect data storage model
When using IBM Spectrum Protect for backing up IBM Spectrum Scale file systems, the IBM Spectrum Protect data storage architecture and its implications need to be considered.
How to identify backup and migration candidates
When using IBM Spectrum Protect for backing up IBM Spectrum Scale file systems, there are several choices for the method used to identify backup and migration candidates.
Comparison of snapshot based backups and backups from live system
Backing up large file systems can take many hours or even days. When using the IBM Spectrum Scale command mmbackup, time is needed for the following steps.
File system and fileset backups with IBM Spectrum Protect
Starting with IBM Spectrum Scale 4.1.1, mmbackup supports backup from independent filesets in addition to backup of the whole file system. Independent filesets have similar capabilities as a file system in terms of quota management, dependent filesets, snapshots, and having their own inode space.
Considerations for using fileset backup with IBM Spectrum Protect
IBM Spectrum Protect stores backup data indexed by file or directory object path names in its database. However, file system objects are identified for HSM by their object ID extended attributes. In both cases, IBM Spectrum Protect is not aware of the fileset entity. Therefore, the fileset configuration of an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster is neither backed up nor can it be restored by IBM Spectrum Protect alone, unless separate action is taken.
Considerations for backing up file systems that are HSM space managed with IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management
When IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management is used to migrate data to secondary storage pools (for example, tape volumes), this migrated data might need to be recalled to disk if the file becomes a backup candidate due to certain changes a user may apply to it.

Parent topic: Planning for GPFS