Re: Some vital information on ISM

Hi, I'm not really an expert with XPS. A colleague tells me that for XPS systems you most probably should use a fully capable storage manager (Legato Networker, Tivoli, etc.) rather than the limited ISM. The bootstrap information is storage manager internal information. Backing up the bootstrap info provides a means for the storage manager to recover this info (should it get destroyed on disk) so that in can locate the IDS backup objects (dbspaces and logs). With fully capable storage managers you have only one storage manager server running on one machine and front ends connect to it via network. Therefore there's only one location where there is bootstrap info to be backed up. This is where the command is to be run. Since ISM does not really have network capability (one of the limitations) I'm not sure how exactly it works with XPS. The bootstrap backup needs to be run wherever there is an ISM running and keeping bootstrap info (locally). If in XPS there's only a single ISM running on one of the (coserver) machines, then it should be OK to run the command only there, after all backup activity has completed on all coservers. If in XPS there's one ISM running on each (coserver) machine, then the command should be run on each of them, because most probably each ISM has its own bootstrap info locally. To simply replace the ism_catalog command with the savegrp command and run it in the same fashion might run the command a bit too often. But you would be on the safe side and it should not do any harm. Regards, Martin -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Information Management informix-list-bounces@iiug.org wrote on 06.01.2006 19:08:58: > Martin, many thanks for the info. > > I was about to make this change to my onbar script, and it seems that the > "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." was being executed once for each > BAR_WORKER_COSVR defined in my ONCONFIG file (there are two defined), exact > command: > > xctl -P -H $WORKER_COSVR_LIST > \\$INFORMIXDIR/bin/ism_catalog -create_bootstrap -pool ISMData > /dev/null > 2>&1 > > Does the savegrp command need to be run in this manner, or will running it > once back up everything? > > Regards, > Milton > > "Martin Fuerderer" <MARTINFU@de.ibm.com> wrote in message > news:mailman.47.1136197059.740.informix-list@iiug.org... > > Hi, > > > > as this is being discussed in more detail than I first thought > > (first only seeing David's e-mail as I read them "backwards"), > > here's more information on this bootstrap topic: > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > PTS-B 133990 describes the following problem with the Informix Storage > > Manager (ISM) Version 2.20.UC1x : > > > > The command "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." utilizes the > > "savegrp" command with the default backup/archive level. > > This level automatically evaluates to "full" upon first command > > execution, but thereafter evaluates to an incremental level upon all > > successive command executions. > > Therefore the media/volume containing the first bootstrap creation > > is always necessary in order to restore the bootstrap successfully. > > > > Workaround : > > > > To avoid the need for the first media/volume during bootstrap restore, > > a bootstrap backup/archive of level "full" needs to be done every > > time. To accomplish this, the level must be specified explicitely. > > This is not possible with the "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." > > command. > > > > Instead, the underlying command "savegrp" must be executed directly. > > Replace the command "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." with the > > following : > > > > $INFORMIXDIR/bin/savegrp -O -l full ISMData > > > > where > > "-O" is a capital-o (not a zero), > > > > "ISMData" is the pool name where the bootstrap data should go, > > > > the command must be executed as user "root". > > > > E.g. in $INFORMIXDIR/bin/onbar (shell script), this replacement > > should be done by the Informix Server System Administrator. > > Also the output (both stdout and stderr) of the "savegrp" command > > should be redirected to the ON-Bar activity log file (BAR_ACT_LOG > > parameter from onconfig file). > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Note, that this is largely independent of the IDS version. > > > > Actually, this information was intended for the release notes > > (back in October 2002), but apparently it didn't make it, or it has > > disappeared again in recent versions. > > > > As I've discussed some of this matter (directly) with Malcolm > > before, at this time I only can add, that I didn't know about the > > apparent specialty of Sunday in this context. > > So far I did not get to investigate this Sunday thing any further. > > > > Regards, > > Martin > > -- > > Martin Fuerderer > > IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany > > Information Management > > > > informix-list-bounces@iiug.org wrote on 30.12.2005 11:31:15: > >> I had thought that the bootstrap save was automatic until I looked at > > the > >> emails generated when the savegroup is completed. That shows the level > > that > >> was performed. If it shows level 9 then it is incremental and a level > > of > >> Full means what it says. > >> > >> I find this whole area very frustrating. I don't think we know enough > > about > >> it, and for such a vital area I think we should know a lot more. I > > didn't > >> find out about this until I tried to do an imported restore - which > >> fortunately wasn't when the system had crashed - but it might have been. > >> > >> Regards > >> > >> Malcolm > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: informix-list-bounces@iiug.org > > [mailto:informix-list-bounces@iiug.org] > >> On Behalf Of Milton J. Vidrine, Jr. > >> Sent: 30 December 2005 01:42 > >> To: informix-list@iiug.org > >> Subject: Re: Some vital information on ISM > >> > >> > >> mweallans@panacea.co.uk wrote: > >> > One of the problems that has been reported on ISM is that it doesn't > >> > do a FULL backup of the bootstrap. There is even a bug report > >> > cncerning this. But I couldn't understand why one of my sites was > >> > doing a full backup and others were not. After much research I > >> > disocvered that the ISM system does a FULL backup of the bootstrap > >> > information if the backup is run on a Sunday, but it only does > >> > incremental backups on the other days. Now that is all very well if > >> > you do daily backups but many of the sites that I manage didn't want > >> > backups on Saturday or Sunday when there is nobody at work. > >> > So now I'm modifying all sites to do backups on Sunday thru Thursday > >> > rather than Monday thru Friday. > >> > > >> > Malcolm > >> > > >> We're running XPS 8.50.fc2 on