IBM i Agent 1-Touch Disaster Recovery Procedures

Use the following procedures to recover from a disaster.

You can recover to the same system or duplicate the system.

There are two DR restore procedures that can be used to recover an IBM i client.

IBMi Client-Level Option: “1-Touch Recovery Points”

Use this procedure to recover an IBM i client from scratch using ISO images, when no operating system is installed on the destination system.

1. Configure the destination IBMi client in the CommServe with an access node in the same data center.

2. Initiate recovery using the client-level option 1-Touch Recovery Points, and specify the following:

   • Source IBMi client

   • Destination IBMi client

   • Linux client in the destination data center where the DVD images will be restored

   See Performing an IBM i Disaster Recovery Operation.

3. A workflow job starts and initiates the restore of DVD images to the specified server and folder. The workflow job is then suspended.

4. After the DVD images are restored, copy the images to the VIOS and mount them to boot the destination IBMi client.

   See Creating Virtual DVDs on a VIOS for IBM i Disaster Recovery.

5. After loading the ISO image and performing IPL-D, restore the Licensed Internal Code (LIC) and operating system by following the steps for Restoring the Minimal Operating System (OS) for an IBM i File System Agent Client.

6. After the base OS is installed, recover the remaining data from the ISO images by following the steps for Recovering System Data and Commvault Libraries from a DR Backup.

7. After all ISO image data is recovered, configure TCP/IP from the IBMi command line, and then resume the suspended workflow job in the CommCell.

8. The workflow initiates the Full Data Recovery process and submits multiple jobs in sequence to recover user data.

   See Performing an IBM i File System Agent Full Data Restore Operation

9. User data is restored in the following sequence:

   1. Restore of *SECDTA in restricted state.

   2. Restore of IBM-supplied libraries, user libraries, and history files.

   3. Reclaim storage for DLO in restricted state.

   4. Restore of QDLS data.

   5. Restore of IFS data.

   6. Restore of private authorities by executing the RSTAUT command

10. After all operations complete, the workflow job is marked as completed.

BackupSet-Level Option: “Full Data Recovery”

Use this procedure when the operating system has already been restored using existing DVDs on the LPAR and the IBMi LPAR client is added to the CommServe.

1. In this case, run Full Data Recovery from the BackupSet-level menu.

   See Performing an IBM i File System Agent Full Data Restore Operation.

2. This action starts a workflow job that submits multiple restore jobs in sequence to recover user data.

3. User data is restored in the following sequence:

   1. Restore of *SECDTA in restricted state.

   2. Restore of IBM-supplied libraries, user libraries, and history files.

   3. Reclaim storage for DLO in restricted state.

   4. Restore of QDLS data.

   5. Restore of IFS data.

   6. Restore of private authorities by executing the RSTAUT command

Notes

• Step 8 under 1-Touch Recovery Points and Step 3 under Full Data Recovery are functionally identical. The only difference is the method of initiation (automatic through the suspended workflow versus manual initiation from the user interface).

• If DVD images are already available and the LPAR does not have an operating system installed, perform Step 4 from the 1-Touch Recovery Points procedure to restore the minimal operating system.

• After the minimal operating system is restored and the conditions for the Full Data Recovery procedure are met (Step 1), continue with the steps in the Full Data Recovery procedure.

1-Touch Disaster Recovery Process Overview

The 1-Touch DR process uses the following entities:

• A subclient that has additional configurations for the disaster recovery process, for example, where to store the DVD images and the delay before the system switches to restricted mode.

• A predefined operation that copies the DVD images, and then restores the data.

The 1-Touch DR process includes the following steps:

1. Create a disaster recovery subclient.

2. Perform a backup on the disaster recovery subclient.

   The disaster recovery operation uses the backup.

3. Perform the disaster recovery operation.

   The operation creates 2 jobs, a job that copies the DVD images and a job that restores the data.

   The first job copies the DVD images to the proxy server.

   The second job restores the data.

   When the operation starts, the software starts the DVD copy job (the status shows running) and places the restore job in a suspended state.

   When DVD copy job completes, the software sends you email that indicates the job is complete. Use the DVD images to restore the minimum OS by following the IBM manual, and then restore the Commvault libraries.

   After you restore the operating system and network, go to the CommCell Console and resume the suspended job.

   Note

   If the suspended job failed, or you need to cancel the suspended job, then you can perform a full data restore operation.

Procedure

1. Perform a full backup of all predefined subclients in the IBM i backup set.

2. Configure a Disaster Recovery subclient.

3. Perform a disaster recovery backup. You can perform the backup on the Disaster Recovery subclient, or you can run an operation that performs a backup on all the subclients in the backup set. For more information, see one of the following procedures:

   • Performing a disaster recovery backup

   • Automating Backups of IBM i File System Disaster Recovery Backup Sets

   The IBM i DR recovery operation uses this backup to copy the DVD images.

4. Perform an IBM i DR recovery operation. For more information, see Performing an IBM i Disaster Recovery Operation.

   The recovery operation copies the DVD images to the proxy, and after you restore the minimal OS, the operation restores the data.

Result

After the entire process completes, the software has restored the following data:

• Security and configuration

• QSYS data

• User and IFS data

• DLO data