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High availablity strategy for Lotus servers

  
Overview Lotus Server Backups GUI TSM Support

In order to help you design your own strategy for backing up all of your Lotus servers while they are online, we are providing the following sample backup strategy. Please remember that your specific needs may not match this particular scenario, therefore you should carefully design your strategy to fit your situation.

For the purposes of this strategy, we are going to classify the data on our system as either

  • Lotus server data
  • Other user data
  • System data

In this example we have decided that we will backup the Lotus server data and the other user data daily. The system data only needs to be backed up weekly or monthly, depending on how often it is being changed (ie. by applying PTFs).

Backing up Lotus server data
In order to backup all Lotus Notes databases while they are online with zero synchronization time, use the STRBKUBRM command to backup the QLTSSVR control group that was created by BRMS.

STRBKUBRM CTLGRP(QLTSSVR) SBMJOB(*NO)

If you have multiple tape drives, you can use the individual control groups, ie...QLTSDOMxx, and send them down in batch to get concurrent use from your tape library.

You can also create your own control group(s) to tailor these backups according to your own particular needs..

In addition, you might wish to consider using an incremental online backup strategy if:

  1. You are pushing the 24 hour limit.
  2. You want to use less tapes.
  3. You want point in time recovery of data.

Go to the Incremental backups page to understand this process.

Backing up other user data
You can backup the rest of the non-Lotus user data using Save While Active(SWA). This data can all be saved while your Lotus servers are online. You will need to create a BRMS/400 control group similar to the following control group:

Group . . . . . . . . . . : SYSWODOM

Default activity  . . . . : FFFFFFF

Text  . . . . . . . . . . : Backs up all user data except notes
                           Weekly    Retain    Save     SWA

      Backup     List   Activity  Object    While    Message

Seq   Items      Type   SMTWTFS   Detail    Active   Queue

10    *EXIT             *DFTACT

20    *SAVSECDTA        *DFTACT    *NO

30    *SAVCFG           *DFTACT    *NO

40    *ALLUSR           *DFTACT    *ERR     *YES     *LIB

50    *ALLDLO           *DFTACT    *NO      *YES

60    QLTSEXCL   *LNK   *DFTACT    *YES     *YES     *LIB

70    *EXIT             *DFTACT

The QLTSEXCL link list (sequence 60 above) which is automatically created by BRMS/400, will backup all link data not being backed up by the QLTSSVR control group above.

Backing up system data
You will need to backup the system data once a week or month, based on the activity within this area (ie...applying ptfs,etc) Your Lotus servers will need to be offline during this operation, as the system must be in restricted state.

You can start by copying the *SYSGRP control group and include the QIBMLINK link list. An example is shown below: (If you are running on a pre-V5R1 system, you will need to create your own link list that includes both '/QIBM/ProdData' and 'QOpenSys/QIBM/ProdData *ALL'.)

Group . . . . . . . . . . : RESTRICTED

Default activity  . . . . . *BKUPCY

Text  . . . . . . . . . . . Backs up all system data
Type information, press Enter.
                         Weekly     Retain    Save       SWA

       Backup     List   Activity   Object    While      Message

Seq    Items      Type   SMTWTFS    Detail    Active     Queue

 10    *EXIT             *DFTACT

 20    *SAVSYS           *DFTACT

 30    *IBM              *DFTACT      *NO      *NO

 40    QIBMLINK   *LNK   *DFTACT      *NO      *NO

 50    *EXIT             *DFTACT

Conclusion
This strategy is not for every Notes/400 customer, but it does provide information that will help provide your Notes/400 users more access to their mail, with less down time. There are quite a few ways to alter this strategy in order to fine tune it for your specific configuration. (ie...moving the *ALLDLO to the once a week/month control group.)