HP Archive Backup System for OpenVMS Guide to Operations

Preparing For Disaster Recovery
7.1 Disaster Recovery for OpenVMS Systems
Execution Nodes: BONFYR
Explicit Interval:
Frequency: DAILY
Groups:
Incremental: NO
Job Number: 0
Prologue:
Schedule: SYSTEM_DISK_SAVE_SCHED
Sequence Option: SEQUENTIAL
Skip Time: NONE
Start Date: NONE
Transaction Status:
Selections: SYSTEM_DISK_SAVE_SEL_DEF
Default Selection -
- Data Select Type: VMS_FILES
- Include: $1$DUA300:
- Exclude:
- Source Node:
This SAVE uses the standard archive of DISASTER_RECOVERY and the standard environment
of DISASTER_RECOVERY _ENV which comes with ABS. If these objects do not exist
on your system run the ABS database initialization program:
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:ABS$DB_INIT
This program adds all the missing default ABS objects to the MDMS database.
Saving an OpenVMS system disk online produces many errors for files open for write by the
operating system and layered products. Even though, the image backup produced can be used to
restore a bootable system disk. The problem comes when executing the site-specific
SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM. For example when starting the OpenVMS Queue Manager the command
could hang because the Queue Manager files had been saved in an inconsistent state.
There are three ways to avoid these kind of problems.
• Do a standalone backup of your system disk.
For Alpha systems, see the section "Backing Up the System Disk" in the Appendix of the
“Alpha Upgrade and Installation Manual” in the OpenVMS Documentation.
For VAX systems see the chapter “Using BACKUP” in the “System Manager’s Manual” in
the OpenVMS Documentation.
• Shutdown components of your system until all critical files are closed before starting the
backup of your system disk. To find out which files are open for write use the following
method:
$ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK SYS$SYSDEVICE: NLA0:DUMMY.SAV/SAVE
Before the backup shutdown all components for which BACKUP reported:
%BACKUP-W-ACCONFLICT, SYS$SYSDEVICE:[SYS0.SYSCOMMON.SYSEXE]QMAN$MAS-
TER.DAT;1 is open for write by another user
Shutdown of these components can be done in the prolog procedure in environment
DISASTER_RECOVER_ENV. The same components can be automatically restarted in the
epilog procedure.
• Ignore any error messages during the save operation. After restoring your system disk boot
into conversational boot and rename your SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM and SYLOGI-
CALS.COM to prevent any startup of extra components or layered products and reboot.
7-2 Preparing For Disaster Recovery