Backing up Db2 data

Define regular Db2® backup jobs with options to run and create backup copies to protect your data. You can enable continuous backing up of archive logs so that you can restore a point-in-time copy with rollforward options if required.

Before you begin

During the initial backup, IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus creates a new vSnap volume and NFS share. During incremental backups, the previously created volume is reused. The IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Db2 agent mounts the share on the Db2 server where the backup is to be completed.

Review the following procedures and considerations before you create a backup job definition:
  • Add the application servers that you want to back up. For the procedure, see Adding a Db2 application server.
  • Configure a Service Level Agreement (SLA) Policy. For the procedure, see Defining a Service Level Agreement backup job.
  • Before an IBM Spectrum Protect Plus user can implement backup and restore operations, roles and resource groups must be assigned to the user. Grant users access to resources and backup and restore operations through the Accounts pane. For more information, see Managing user access.
  • Inventory jobs should not be scheduled to run at the same time as backup jobs.
  • Avoid configuring log backups for a single Db2 database with many backup jobs. If a single Db2 database is added to multiple job definitions with log backup enabled, a log backup from one job can truncate a log before it is backed up by the next job. This might cause point-in-time restore jobs to fail.

About this task

The following steps describe how to back up resources that are assigned to an SLA policy. To run an on-demand backup job for one or more resources regardless of whether those resources are already associated with an SLA policy, click Create job, select Ad hoc backup, and follow the instructions in Running an ad hoc backup job.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, expand Manage Protection > Applications > Db2.
  2. Select a resource to back up.
    • Select an entire instance in the Instances pane by clicking the instance name check-box. Any databases added to this instance are automatically assigned to the SLA policy that you choose.
    • Select a specific database in an instance by clicking the instance name, and choosing a database from the list of databases in that instance.
  3. Click Select Options to enable or disable log backup, and to specify parallel streams to minimize time taken for large data movement in the backup operation. Click Save to commit the options.

    Select Enable Log Backup to back up archive logs, which allows point-in-time restore options and recovery options. For Db2 log backup settings information, see Log backups.

    Figure 1. Backup pane with the Enable Log Backup option
    Backup Options: Enable Log Backup selected with Maximum Parallel Streams per Database showing a value of 2.

    If an on-demand job runs with the Enable Log Backup option enabled, log backup occurs. However, when the job runs again on a schedule, the option is disabled for that job run to prevent possible missing segments in the chain of backups.

    When you save the options, those options are used for all backup jobs for this database or instance as selected.

  4. Select the database or instance again, and click Select SLA Policy to choose an SLA policy for that database or instance.
  5. Save the SLA options.
    To define a new SLA or to edit an existing policy with custom retention and frequency rates, select Manage Protection > Policy Overview. In the SLA Policies pane, click Add SLA Policy, and define your policy preferences.

What to do next

When the SLA policy is saved, you choose to run an on-demand backup any time by clicking Actions for that policy, and selecting Start. The status in the log changes to show that the backup is Running.