Planning a backup and recovery strategy
If you lose information on your system, you need to use your backup copies of the information. This topic collection contains information about how to plan your strategy and make the choices you need to set up your system for backup, recovery, and availability.
The IBM® System i™ products are very reliable. You might run your system for months or even years without experiencing any problems that cause you to lose information on your system. However, as the frequency of the computer problems decreases, the potential impact of the problems increases. Businesses are becoming more dependent on computers and the information that is stored in them. The information that is in your computer might not be available anywhere else.
Saving the information on your system is time-consuming and requires discipline. Why should you do it? Why should you spend time on planning and evaluating it?
The Backup and recovery timeline provides a high-level overview of the events that occur during the backup and recovery process.
After you study the backup and recovery timeline, you can start to plan your strategy by following these steps:
- Know what to save and how often to save it.
- Find your save window.
- Choose the availability options.
- Test your strategy.
- Printable PDF
Use this to view and print a PDF of this information.- Backup and recovery timeline
The timeline for backup and recovery begins when you save the information and ends when your system is fully recovered after a failure.- Knowing what to save and how often to save it
You should save the parts of your system that change often daily. Every week, you should save the parts of your system that do not change often.- Finding your save window
When you run save procedures, how you run save procedures and what you save depend on the size of your save window.- Choosing availability options
Availability options are complements to a good save strategy, not replacements. Availability options can significantly reduce the time that it takes you to recover after a failure. In some cases, availability options can prevent you from performing a recovery.- Testing your strategy
If your situation requires a medium save strategy or a complex save strategy, it requires regular review.- Planning disaster recovery
These guidelines contain the information and procedures that you need to recover from a disaster.Related concepts
Backing up your system Availability roadmap Planning disaster recovery