Restoring the NWSD and virtual storage for integrated servers

One method of restoring your integrated server data is to restore the Network Server Description (NWSD) and virtual disk drives (virtual storage) that IBM® i associates with that server. It is the fastest method for restoring large amounts of data.

If you used file-level backup, you can also restore specific integrated server files.

When you restore saved objects from IBM i, you need to be aware of these considerations:

  1. Treat a network server description (NWSD), its predefined disk drives (see Predefined virtual storage and naming for integrated servers), and any user-defined disk drives that are linked to it as a unit. Restore them at the same time. Otherwise, the integrated server may not be able to re-establish items such as Windows server File System permissions.
  2. To have IBM i automatically relink restored disk drives in the integrated file system to the appropriate NWSD, restore the NWSD after you restore the disk drives.
  3. If you restore an NWSD before restoring the predefined and user-defined disk drives in the integrated file system, you might need to relink those disk drives.
    The system will attempt to relink the storage space to the NWSD that it was linked to when it was saved. To manually link the storage, see Linking virtual storage to integrated servers for each disk drive that is associated with the NWSD.
  4. When you are done restoring the NWSD and all its associated virtual storage spaces, vary on the integrated server.
  5. For integrated Windows servers, when you restore a domain controller, ensure that the domain database held on the server is synchronized with the other domain controllers.

    Follow normal Windows procedures to do this and refer to documentation from Microsoft as necessary.