Detailed System Requirements
Abstract
This document details the backup and restores requirements for InterSystems Database for IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management 2.3.0.
Content
- The product now known as IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management was named IBM Storage Copy Data Management in levels earlier than 2.2.26. To learn more about the brand change, see IBM Storage CDM and Sentinel brand change to IBM Storage Defender CDM and Sentinel.
- The product now known as IBM Storage Copy Data Management was named IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management in levels earlier than 2.2.20. To learn more about the brand change, see IBM Spectrum Protect brand change to IBM Storage Protect.
This document is divided into linked sections for ease of navigation. Use the following links to jump to the section of the document that you require:
- General
- Configuration
- Software
- Connectivity
- Authentication and privileges
- Backup and restore
- Sample Configuration
- On the IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management environment, InterSystems Caché and InterSystems IRIS are collectively referred to as InterSystems Database.
- IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management installs an agent on application servers when they are registered. Some anti-virus software might flag or attempt to remove the agent software. If you run anti-malware software application servers, exclude the installation path of the IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management agent.
For Linux-based and AIX-based systems, the agent installation directory must be excluded for any anti-virus software scans. Add this path to the exclusion list for all anti-virus software that is installed on the application server. For Oracle (Linux and AIX/Power), Caché and IRIS (on Linux and AIX/Power), and SAP HANA (on Linux and Power):
/tmp/cdm_guestapps_<username>Where <username> is the username of the account used to register the application server in IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management.
- IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management support for third-party operating systems, applications, services, and hardware depend on the respective vendor. If a third-party product or version moves into extended support, self-service support, or end-of-life, IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management supports the product or version at the same level as the vendor. See also IBM Support General Guidelines and Limitations - IBM support for software on unsupported operating systems
Supported platforms and configurations |
| IRIS Configuration: |
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| Storage Systems: |
Note: Due to a known limitation in PowerFlex Manager version 4.6.x and 4.8.x, the standard user account with storage admin privileges is insufficient for performing remote snapshot operations, as a workaround user must be granted super-user privileges. |
Server Types | Operating Systems | Storage Configuration |
| Physical |
Note: For RHEL 10, the default python version is 3.12.x. However, CDM requires the python version 3.9.x, which needs to be installed and set as default python path. |
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| Virtual (VMware) [2, 4] |
Note: For RHEL 10, the default python version is 3.12.x. However, CDM requires the python version 3.9.x, which needs to be installed and set as default python path. |
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Notes:
1. IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management tested against IRIS 2022, IRIS 2024.1 and IRIS 2025.1, IRIS 2025.1.2.
2. For supported VMware vSphere versions, see in System Requirements: IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management 2.3.0
3. Select the provider type (Virtual/Physical) when you register the InterSystems Database provider in IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management. All data and log files for an instance should be backed by either an iSCSI, FC or in case of PowerFlex' proprietary SDC protocol disk.
Note: NetApp ONTAP Storage Systems are not supported.
4. InterSystems Database servers registered as virtual must have the most recent version of VMware Tools installed.
5. Supported platforms: IBM Power Systems, Intel based Systems running supported Linux OS.
6. On all supported storage systems, snapshot condense is run during every maintenance jobs.
7. Pure storage supports InterSystems Caché.
8. InterSystems IRIS is tested on AIX 7.1, AIX 7.2 and AIX 7.3.
9. Select the Physical provider type when you register the provider in IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management.
10. For Dell PowerMax Storage:
- Use separate Storage Groups for different databases for improved performance.
- IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management supports one parent Storage Group, and it can contain different child Storage Group for different databases.
- Keep datafiles and log files in separate Storage Group.
- When using Parent Storage Group with child Storage Group, use separate child Sstorage Groups for data and log.
- For Instant Restore, Host on Dell PowerMax array must have at least one Masking View created for itself, even if the host is a part of a hostgroup having active Masking View.
- For remote replication, please create and map the host to the remote array as well and have at least one Masking View created using it. The port group used in the Masking View created will be used by the CDM restore job while creating Masking View to map the restored volumes to the host on the remote array.
11. For Dell PowerFlex Storage:
- RHEL 10, SUSE 16 and SUSE 15 SP07 are currently not supported by Dell PowerFlex SDC driver for version 4.8.x.
- Ensure that the VMware ESXi hostnames registered in Dell PowerFlex Storage exactly match the hostnames configured on the VMware vSphere environment.
Ensure that the Dell PowerFlex SDC component is installed and running on ESXi hosts where the application VMs are hosted.
Applications that are registered as Physical for Dell PowerFlex need to follow the below steps. Since SDC setup is done as root user, binaries like drv_cfg are not accessible for non-root users, which are used in application registration.
namei -l $(readlink -f /opt/emc/scaleio/sdc/bin/drv_cfg) groups <username> groupadd powerflex usermod -aG powerflex <username> groups <username> chgrp -R powerflex /usr/bin/emc chgrp -R powerflex /usr/bin/emc/scaleio/ chmod -R g+rx /usr/bin/emc/scaleio/ chgrp -R powerflex /opt/emc/scaleio chmod -R g+rx /opt/emc/scaleio chmod g+rx $(readlink -f /opt/emc/scaleio/sdc/bin/drv_cfg) namei -l $(readlink -f /opt/emc/scaleio/sdc/bin/drv_cfg)
InterSystems Database support for VMware virtual machines
For virtual machines, the Disk UUID option must be enabled. To enable:
- Power off the guest machine through the vSphere client
- Select the guest and click Edit Settings
- Select VM Options
Edit Configuration under the Advanced section and add a row that states the following:
Name: disk.enableUUID Value: TRUE
Virtual disks and pRDM are supported for VMware configurations. Data and log files for an instance need to stay on either pRDMs or virtual disks. One instance cannot use both disk types.
- The bash and sudo packages must be installed. Sudo must be version 1.8.29 or later. Run sudo -V to check the version.
- Python version 3.x must be installed.
RHEL 8.x only: Verify the util-linux package is up to date by running:
yum update util-linuxRHEL 8.x or later: A required Perl module, Digest:MD5, is not installed by default. Install the module by running:
yum install perl-Digest-MD5Linux only: If data stays on LVM volumes, make sure that the LVM version is 2.03.02 or later. To check the LVM version and if necessary to update the package, run:
lvm version yum update lvm2
- The SSH service must be running on port 22 on the server and any firewalls must be configured to allow IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management to connect to the server by using SSH. The SFTP subsystem for SSH must also be enabled.
- The server can be registered by using a DNS name or IP address. DNS names must be resolvable by IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management.
- To mount clones or copies of data, IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management automatically maps and unmaps LUNs to the servers. Each server must be preconfigured to connect to the relevant Storage Systems at that site.
- For Fibre Channel, the appropriate zoning must be configured beforehand.
- For iSCSI, the servers must be configured beforehand to discover and log in to the targets on the storage servers.
Authentication
- The application server must be registered in IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management by using an operating system user that exists on the server (referred to as "IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management agent user" for the rest of this topic).
- During registration, you must provide either a password or a private SSH key that IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management uses to log in to the server.
- For password-based authentication, make sure that the password is correctly configured, and that the user can log in without facing any other prompts, such as prompts to reset the password.
- For key-based authentication, verify that the public SSH key is placed in the appropriate authorized_keys file for the IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management agent user.
- Typically, the file is at: /home/<username>/.ssh/authorized_keys
- Typically, the .ssh directory and all files under it need their permissions set to 600.
OS-level authentication must be enabled on the InterSystems Database server.
- For InterSystems IRIS interface:
- Go to: System Administration > Security > System Security > Authentication/Web Session Options.
- Then, select: Allow Operating System authentication.
The user identity associated with IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management registration needs sufficient privileges to start some system commands. For example, system commands used to find disk information for InterSystem IRIS’, “iris session” command without asking for a database username and password. To enable this feature, use the InterSystems Database instance owner user after you add the user to sudoers file.
Privileges
The IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management agent user needs the following privileges:
- Privileges to run commands as root and other users by using sudo. IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management requires these privileges for various tasks such as discovering storage layouts and mounting and unmounting disks.
- The sudoers configuration must allow the IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management agent user to run commands without a password.
- The !requiretty setting must be set.
For examples on creating a new user with the necessary privileges, see Sample Configuration in InterSystems Database requirements.
Backup Jobs
InterSystems IRIS Database backup jobs occur at the instance level. Multiple instances can be added to a single backup job definition, and all instances on a host are automatically discovered.
It is possible to scan an InterSystems Database backup failover member instance or an async member instance and run snapshots against the mirror copy instead of the primary failover member.
Virtual instances can be selected for backup, however it is better to select database instances explicitly. If virtual instances are selected, the associated job definition must be adjusted when the database instances are upgraded to later versions.
Restore Jobs
If the xfsprogs package version on the destination server is between 3.2.0 and 4.1.9, the restore process might fail when you restore a database or file system from an XFS file system. To resolve the issue, upgrade xfsprogs to version 4.2.0 or later.
InterSystems IRIS software is not required on the target host. However, the target host needs to have similar specifications to the source host, including operating system and processor.
That the following users and groups must be created on the target host: instance owner, effective user for InterSystems Database superserver and its jobs, effective group for InterSystems Database processes, and a group that has permissions to start and stop InterSystems Database instances. The user and group IDs need to match with the user and group IDs on the source host. The instance is brought up by using the same mount points as those mount points found on the source machine. Make sure that these mounts are not in use on the target.
When you restore to a target with running InterSystems Database instances, the instances display as valid targets. That IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management does not interact with these instances but instead start a new instance by using mapped mount points. When you restore to a target with no prior InterSystems Database instances, IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management creates a placeholder that acts as a restore target.
Single InterSystems Databases can be restored through an Instant Disk Restore job, which mounts physical volumes on the target machine. Granular recovery can then be run through InterSystems commands.
Instant Database restore for InterSystems Databases:
When you run an instant database restore to another compatible Linux system, you must first register that system in IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management as an InterSystems database to which the existing database can be restored. Make sure that no existing mounts exist on the new system that might conflict with mounts that are restored. For example, /IRISHealth/db and /IRISHealth/log/ for InterSystems IRIS. The database is started automatically. If it is not, start the database instance manually.
$ cd /IRISHealth/db/bin
$ iris start <name_of_instance>
When you run an instant database restore to the same InterSystems database system or another system runs an InterSystems database, the source and destination mount points must be different for /IRISHealth/db and /IRISHealth/log/ for InterSystems IRIS. InterSystems IRIS Databases can be only restored to another InterSystems IRIS system. Additionally, the destination database must be stopped because the port used to run the database can be used only by one database at a time. To stop the database from running, issue the following command:
$ iris stop <name_of_instance>
The following commands are examples for creating and configuring an operating system user that IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management use to log in to the application server. The command syntax might vary depending on your operating system type and version.
Create the user that is designated as the IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management agent user:
useradd -m cdmagentIf you use password-based authentication, set a password:
passwd cdmagentAdd the user to the dbusr group:
usermod -g dbusr usernameIf you use key-based authentication, place the public key in /home/cdmagent/.ssh/authorized_keys. Or place the appropriate file, depends on your sshd configuration. And verify that the correct ownership and permissions are set, such as:
chown -R cdmagent:cdmagent /home/cdmagent/.ssh chmod 700 /home/cdmagent/.ssh chmod 600 /home/cdmagent/.ssh/authorized_keysPlace the following lines at the end of your sudoers configuration file, typically /etc/sudoers. If the existing sudoers file is configured to import configuration from another directory (for example, /etc/sudoers.d), you can also place the lines in a new file in that directory:
Defaults:cdmagent !requiretty cdmagent ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
Related Information
Product Synonym
IBM Storage Defender CDM
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Document Information
Modified date:
28 April 2026
UID
ibm17267289