We are aware of that possibility Kathleen but haven't tackled that problem
yet. In our case the VOB servers are running on Solaris machines with the
actual VOBS and VIEWS accessed via NFS on AIX file servers.

For proof of concept, and to validate the data that is backed up while the
lock is in place is valid, we are just issuing the lock on the Solaris side
via cron and scheduling the start of the backup on the file servers after
that has occurred. The unlock is scheduled a couple of hours after the
"normal" run time of the file server backup. Not elegant but the user
community has agreed to run like this for a few weeks to see what we all
learn.

Once we validate the integrity of the data with some test restores we will
be looking at some type of a scheduling tool, (Control-M) comes to mind,
that will schedule the lock, then run a backup, and once complete unlock the
VOB. The idea being to keep all three pieces in sync and controlled from a
single place.

Curt Magura
Lockheed Martin EIS
Orlando Fla.
321-235-1203


-----Original Message-----
From: Kathleen Hallahan [mailto:Kathleen_Hallahan AT FREDDIEMAC DOT COM]
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 3:19 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: Rational ClearCase Backups

This is coming up in our environment as well.  Do you or has anyone out
there determined what to do in the event a backup exceeds its normal
window, or fails and has to be restarted, or some such eventuality?
Locking VOBS at unexpected times can't be too helpful to the users!

Thanks!

Kathleen




                    Thomas Denier
                    <Thomas.Denier@MAI       To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
                    L.TJU.EDU>               cc:
                    Sent by: "ADSM:          Subject:     Re: Rational
ClearCase Backups
                    Dist Stor Manager"
                    <[email protected].
                    EDU>


                    04/11/2003 10:44
                    AM
                    Please respond to
                    "ADSM: Dist Stor
                    Manager"






> Anyone out there running Rational Clearcase? If you are how do you handle
> the backup of the VOBS? Do you use the Rational lock mechanism followed
by a
> regular TSM incremental backup and then unlock the VOBS after the backup
> completes? We are getting ready to do test some restores using this
> approach. Curious what other folks may be doing.

The O'Reilly book "Unix Backup & Recovery" has a chapter on ClearCase.
There is no specific information on TSM, but there is a detailed
discussion of the locking and unlocking procedures needed to obtain
a consistent backup.