The backup and restore functions allow the backup and restoration of system images from physical OS's or VM hosts.
The system images are backed up over the network and stored on a disk on the admin server.
A system image backup can be used for the following purposes.
Software maintenance
A system image backup can be created as a precautionary measure before performing maintenance tasks such as applying patches, installing, or modifying installed software.
Hardware maintenance
A system image backup can be used to guard against hardware problems such as disk failures.
Note
Only the contents of the first disk (boot disk) recognized by the managed server's BIOS can be backed up and restored.
The contents of other disks (data disks) cannot be backed up and restored. To properly back up and restore such data disks, it is recommended to use dedicated backup software, or the copy functions available in storage devices.
When the first disk contains multiple partitions (Windows drive, Linux/VMware partition), all partitions are backed up.
Disk | Windows drive name | Target of backup and restore |
|---|---|---|
First | C: | Yes |
E: | Yes | |
Second | D: | No |
F: | No |
As managed servers are restarted during backup and restore operations, their applications should be stopped beforehand.
The first partition must be the boot partition.
Backup and restore of VM hosts differ depending on the server virtualization software used.
For an explanation of the behavior differences that occur when VM guests are included in the VM host's boot disk, refer to "A.3 Functional Differences between Products" in the "ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Setup Guide".
If VM guests on the boot disk are not to be backed up (and restored), VM guest files should be moved to another disk.
To preserve the configuration of the server virtualization software used, VM guests should be backed up at the same time as VM hosts. During backup, because the target VM host will be automatically set to VM maintenance mode, the VM host should be in a state that allows VM maintenance mode to be set.
When backing up a VM host in a high-availability configuration, all VM guests stored on shared disks should be migrated to another VM host beforehand.
After backing up the VM host, migrate the VM guests back to their original VM host.
Refer to the server virtualization software manual and "A.3 Functional Differences between Products" in the "ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Setup Guide" for information on how to back up and migrate VM guests, or details about the VM maintenance mode.
To preserve the configuration of the server virtualization software used, VM guests backed up at the time of the VM host's backup should also be restored when restoring a VM host. Note that this is not required if no changes likely to alter the virtualization software configuration were made (e.g. changes such as addition or deletion of a VM guest, or changing the placeholder for VM guest definition files).
During restore, because the target VM host will be automatically set to VM maintenance mode, the VM host should be in a state that allows VM maintenance mode to be set.
If the target VM host is in a high-availability configuration, all VM guests stored on shared disks should be migrated to another VM host beforehand.
After restoring the VM host, migrate the VM guests back to their original VM host.
Refer to the server virtualization software manual and "A.3 Functional Differences between Products" in the "ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Setup Guide" for information on how to restore and migrate VM guests, or details about the VM maintenance mode.
Deleting a managed server will delete its backed up system images at the same time.
It is not possible to backup, restore, or delete a system image from a managed server for which a system image (including different versions) is already being backed up, restored, or deleted.
When restoring a system image on a server whose name was changed after the deployment of a cloning image, check that the "server_name" displayed on the server resource tree and the System Image List match the new server name before restoring the system image.
For managed servers on which the Watchdog function is enabled, backup or restore operations on that server may be aborted by an automatic restart or shutdown. The Watchdog is a function which automatically restarts or shuts down non-responsive servers when their operating system does not respond for a given period of time.
Therefore, it is highly recommended to disable the Watchdog function before a backup or restore operation.
For details on the Watchdog function, refer to the server manual.
If the disk size of the source (backed up) server differs from that of the destination (restored) server, restore is possible only in cases where the disk size of the destination server is larger than that of the source server.
In that case, unused disk space will remain on the destination server. To use this unused disk space, a partition should first be created from it.
Restoring a system image to a server on which the disk size is smaller than that of the source (backed up) server is not possible. This also applies to server switchover and failback operations that are based on backup and restore, as well as cloning operations.
Therefore, it is also necessary to ensure that spare servers of cloning destination servers have a large enough disk.
When backing up or restoring system images, or collecting and deploying cloning images, up to four processes can be executed simultaneously. If four processes are already being executed, any additional image operations will enter a standby state.
Moreover, server switchover which is executed using the backup and restore method or any restore process performed during failback will also enter a standby state. When Auto-Recovery or manual switchover using the backup and restore method is used, please limit the number of image operations (backup or restore of system images, or collection and deployment of cloning images) performed at the same time to 3.
When using backup and restore for PRIMERGY Partition Model servers, check that the boot option settings and BIOS settings of the target servers match. When the settings are different, execute the function after changing the settings so they match. This boot option settings can be changed by following the instructions given in "6.3.2.10 Changing Boot Options" in the "ServerView Resource Coordinator VE Setup Guide".
