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  Asked: May 15 2008   4:50 PM GMT
  Asked by: Longcut1

AS400 Backup to Flatfiles


AS/400 backup

I am totally unfamilar with AS400 backup, so please forgive this basic question.

Can an AS400 create a backup flat-file that could be stored on an NFS mounted drive location? The idea would be to create this flat-file backup, and then use a backup agent running on a Unix host to backup the flat file? Is there any chance that this could work? If so, would it pose issues during the recovery process?

Thank you in advance for any insight you might be able to provide.

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Last Answered: May 16 2008  8:33 AM GMT  by Gilly400





Hi,

You can save to a savefile and store the savefile on the NFS and then backup the savefile using your backup agent.

During recovery you would have to reverse the process - shouldn't be any real problems with this. The question is - Why do you want to do this?

If you can backup and restore directly from and to the AS/400 this has got to be a quicker and more reliable way.

Regards,

Martin Gilbert.
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Longcut1  |   May 16 2008  2:16PM GMT

I am working with a client that had asked this question about his environment. I am not sure why they want to look at this type of process verses doing the backup/restore direct.

Thanks so much for the info.

Joe…

 

Mmossman  |   Jun 24 2008  7:05PM GMT

I also have a customer who is interested in nfs backup and I am not that familiar with the AS/400. They would like to run all their AS/400 (i520 w/ v5r4m0) backups onto a nfs mount (likely a RedHat Linux server presenting the filesystem). Two benefits: (1) AS/400 now is backing-up to disk and (2) can now leverage BackupExec and single tape library to write to tape. I believe they are using native BRMS

 

Gilly400  |   Jun 25 2008  9:29AM GMT

Hi,

If the AS/400 is already backing up to disk (this is most likely to be using save files), then you will only need to copy the save files to the NFS mount.

Regards,

Martin Gilbert.

 

Mmossman  |   Jun 26 2008  3:24PM GMT

Can the backups be written directly to the NFS mount? If not, is the copy a simple AS/400 copy command or ftp like I’ve seen in other threads and can this be automated?

 

Gilly400  |   Jun 27 2008  9:28AM GMT

Hi,

Afraid you can’t backup directly to the NFS (as far as I know). You can use FTP for the copy, but it shouldn’t be necessary. You should be able to use the CPYTOSTMF command to copy to your NFS.

Regards,

Martin Gilbert.

 

Graybeard52  |   Jun 28 2008  2:12AM GMT

One possibility might be to use a feature of V5R4 call Virtual Tape. It creates a “tape” backup in the IFS (a unix-like file system) on the System i (aka AS400). You may then be able to copy. ftp , whatever. I must say I haven’t tried this, so I don’t know for sure if it would work

 

Gilly400  |   Jul 3 2008  1:32PM GMT

Hi Graybeard,

I’ve done the same thing with virtual optical and that worked fine, so I’d guess the virtual tape should also work.

Regards,

Martin Gilbert.