We wrote a VM:Tape command exit which swaps the volsers for any VMBACKUP "read" mount when running on any processor other than the production system. That way when we come up on a D.R. box, we use the production VM:Tape and VM:Backup catalogs, but it asks the operator (or robot) to mount the tape in the surviving data center.
The direction I took for D.R. is to automate as much as humanly and legally possible so that operators just IPL the regular (the mirror copy) sysres, and reply to a prompt asking is this is REALLY (What? The cpuid doesn't match production you say!!?) a disaster recovery. If they agree, "magic happens". Our typical z/VM D.R. system (the production system running on a different system z CEC) is usually up less than 10 minutes after we are handed the LPAR. Of course, sysprogs have to change a couple product CPUID passwords, but that takes only minutes after the IPL. Testing end users usually can logon with about 30 minutes of our having been given the LPAR. And we don't have to hurry. It sort of makes me misty-eyed for the old days of 38-hours straight-through heads-down systems programming with no sleep and few meals. But not too much. :-) It's a nice confluence of early career years loving the exhaustion, and later career years having the technology to prevent it. Mike Walter Hewitt Associates Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates. "Llewellyn, Mark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: "The IBM z/VM Operating System" <[email protected]> 06/05/2008 04:19 PM Please respond to "The IBM z/VM Operating System" <[email protected]> To [email protected] cc Subject Re: VM:Backup: Twinning Tapes to Remote Tape Unit That's another option I'll add to the list. The remote site is disaster-recovery only - it doesn't necessarily have to be pretty right off the bat. I'll have to figure out how it knows which tapes to call for where - it'll be a few months before we start real testing. -----Original Message----- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcy Cortes Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 2:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: VM:Backup: Twinning Tapes to Remote Tape Unit We run VM:Backup to local tapes and HIDRO to remote tapes. HIDRO is much faster and doesn't chew the CPU the way VM:Backup does. But the users are used to getting their stuff out of the much prettier vmbackup interface. If you twin remotely and locally, how does the restores work? Do you have to code to just use the local drives for that? Marcy Cortes "This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the addressee or authorized to receive this for the addressee, you must not use, copy, disclose, or take any action based on this message or any information herein. If you have received this message in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this message. Thank you for your cooperation." -----Original Message----- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of O'Brien, Dennis L Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 1:53 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [IBMVM] VM:Backup: Twinning Tapes to Remote Tape Unit If you do a tape-to-tape copy, make sure your local and remote tape volsers match. VM:Backup has the tape volsers in its catalog. If you don't have the correct volsers at your remote site, you have a problem. You could probably get away with different volsers if you code VM:Backup's tape mount user exit to translate the local volser to the remote volser. VM:Backup will probably want to check the tape label, so you'll need to make sure that was copied as part of your tape copy. You'll need to mount the tapes with BLP at the remote site if you do this. Note: I haven't tested any of this. We run a separate backup job, from a separate VM:Backup service machine, for our DR backups. Dennis O'Brien "Don't worry about biting off more than you can chew. Your mouth is bigger than you think." -- CVW-11 chaplain, "Carrier" -----Original Message----- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Post Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 13:38 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [IBMVM] VM:Backup: Twinning Tapes to Remote Tape Unit >>> On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 4:12 PM, in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mark Llewellyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: -snip- > Our other option is to simply run two backup jobs, one to the local drive > and one to the remote, but that effectively doubles the hit of the backup > jobs. Not if you do the backup to local tape drives, and then do a tape-to-tape copy to the remote drives. Mark Post The information contained in this e-mail and any accompanying documents may contain information that is confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. 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