Backup and restore

Backup and recovery of data files and databases is an essential operation for any business system, particularly for data and applications that run in production environments. Create and follow a plan for backing up and recovering data on all tiers of the IBM WebSphere Portal deployment. IBM Installation Manager must also be included in backup and recovery planning. If we back up the WebSphere Portal file structure and then install a fix pack, the WebSphere Portal and IBM Installation Manager become out of sync after restoring the WebSphere Portal file system. This condition is not recoverable.

Backup and recovery include the WebSphere Portal file system and databases. Your backup and recovery plan needs to address each deployment tier: Complete system backup for catastrophic failures, back up of middleware such as WebSphere Portal and IBM WebSphere Application Server, and backup of individual applications that run on the middleware. Backup and recovery can be done on any or all of these tiers, depending on the needs of the portal deployment.

When creating a backup and recovery plan, consider these general questions:

• What procedure will we use to back up data?

• How often will you back up data?

• What are the trade-offs between online and offline backups?

• How does the scope of the portal deployment affect the backup and recovery strategy? For example, the number of users and the volume and importance of the data stored and used in applications affect your decisions about backup and recovery practices.

• Will we use IBM Tivoli Storage Manager or other utility to back up the file system?

Backing up and recovering a WebSphere Portal installation includes the WAS runtime environment and all applications deployed on WebSphere Portal. However, if applications use remote information sources outside of the WebSphere Portal databases and the LDAP directory, we need to consider these remote sources. Develop backup and recovery procedures for these remote sources as part of the comprehensive strategy.

See

• Guidelines for clustered deployments
  
• Back up files, databases, and the LDAP server(s)
  
• Restore files, databases, and the LDAP server(s)
  

Parent IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager V8.5