Backup and Recovery › Sample Backup and Recovery Procedures › Quick System Availability with Partial Recovery

Quick System Availability with Partial Recovery

This approach is an alternative if you cannot afford the downtime of a complete recovery. IPL CA ACF2 for VM immediately on the alternate databases and do recovery later, when there is enough time. The advantage is that the IPL makes the databases useable. The disadvantage is that complete recovery is not possible with this approach. SMF records that record changes to the database contain the complete record and have a date and time stamp indicating when the change occurred. Because the recovery utility does not update a record in the database that has a higher date and time stamp than an SMF record, CA ACF2 for VM does not apply SMF changes before the problem occurred to any record updated between the problem and the recovery. Because a database update is made when a user logs on, there is a large potential to lose data.

Recovery Steps

When the primary databases are unavailable due to hardware error or corrupted databases, follow these steps for quick, partial recovery:

1. Restore the latest backups to the alternate databases. (Skip this step if you use the post backup service machine to restore backups to the alternate databases after each backup occurs.) Verify that the automatic restore occurred correctly. If you use this approach, we recommend you use the post backup service machine to do the automatic restores.
2. IPL the system using the alternate databases.

When the primary databases are available and you have time, do the following:

1. IPL the system without starting CA ACF2 for VM (NOAUTO mode).
2. Identify the SMF files needed to recover. You must use current (online) SMF disks. They are volatile because an SMF disk can become active and reused for recording at any time unless you IPL CA ACF2 for VM in NOAUTO mode.
3. Run the ACFRECVR utility to merge database changes from the SMF records into the alternate databases. For additional information on this utility, see the Reports and Utilities Guide.
4. If the databases are corrupted, make a DDR copy of the primary databases for debugging.
5. Copy the alternate databases to the primary databases.
6. IPL the system normally. This causes CA ACF2 for VM to use the primary databases.
7. Manually back up the CA ACF2 for VM databases using the ACFSERVE BACKUP command.
8. Restore the backups just taken to rebuild your alternate databases (or you can use the post backup service machine to rebuild the alternate databases).