Hello Krzysztol,

We are in the process of producing a white paper on this subject.

I will try to summarize the basic points for you.  I believe these points
to be in-line with what Microsoft's native backup program Ntbackup.exe
provide.  I will use the term "backup product" to mean TSM B-A client or
Ntbackup.exe to indicate the similarities in the procedures.

The most basic scenario is that you have lost a node from the cluster and
the cluster is still operational.  In this case, the cluster database is
not restored to the lost system but re-installed.  If you follow the TSM
Redbook procedures this means that after you have installed Windows +
Service Packs from the install media you would install the cluster db,
then restore the data (system data and system objects) from the backup
product.

If you need to restore the cluster database because you've lost all of the
nodes in the cluster or there has been corruption introduced into the
database, then you can restore the cluster database from the backup
product.  (If you have lost the entire node, then this would be in the
context of a disaster recovery meaning you would restore the cluster as
part of the system object backup; if you are only restoring the quorum
disk, you can restore only the cluster database).  This act of restoring
the data from the backup product will place the cluster information into a
staging area.  At this point, MS provides a tool called clustrest.exe
(part of the resource kit) which copies the restored data into the correct
location and restarts the cluster.  There is more detail on these
scenarios in the upcoming paper.

The first scenario I mentioned can be carried out on NT 4.0 or Windows
2000 since the backup product is not really involved in the restore of the
cluster database.  The other scenarios (restoring the cluster database
from the backup product and using clusrest.exe) relies on an API available
only in Windows 2000. (Microsoft does not offer this API for NT 4.0).

One last note - it is not sufficient to simply backup/restore the Cluster
hive in the registry as this does not guarantee consistency of the cluster
database.  The restores must use the Microsoft API.

Let me know if you need any additional clarification.

Thanks,
Jim

J.P. (Jim) Smith
TSM Client Development

>


Hi.

Has anyone got an idea how to perform "bare metal" restore of MSCS
cluster node (win2k, winNT)? I have performed a lot of tries to do that.
Sometimes it succeeds sometimes doesn't. According to the redbook
sg24-6141 "Deploying the TSM client in a win2k env" I restored ALL
system object including cluster db but cluster services were not running
(of course) and restore failed. So I restored system objects except
cluster db (first time it succeeded).

If you know any better redbook than above or if you have any experience
in it please HELP ME!



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--== KKus ==--