PRIMECLUSTER Global File Services Configuration and Administration Guide 4.1 (Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System)

4.3 Backup Design

This section describes the hardware required to restore backed up file systems and the methods used to perform backups.

• Required hardware

A tape unit or hard disk unit is used to backup the GFS Shared File System.

• Backup restoration procedure

The GFS Shared File System restores backed up file systems with the following methods:

• Restoring the entire file system: dd(1M)
• Restoring the file system on a file basis: cpio(1) or tar(1)

If the GFS Shared File System consists of multiple partitions, backups should be restored on a partition basis. If tape devices and hard disk devices are configured, considered for a load distribution control of assigning I/O transactions, backup and restore tasks can be distributed on all the nodes, and this will reduce the time required to backup and restore each partition.

For more information about restoring backups in the GFS Shared File System, see "Chapter13 File System Backing-up and Restoring."