Backup causing problems with IFS files being locked

[Former Member]

We are having occasional but significant problems with our regular IFS backups. The symptom is that random SAP batch jobs, or tp processes will fail overnight. These seem to be related to the IFS backup running at the time, and appear to be that batch jobs are unable to write their log file, or a tp process will fail due to being unable to access a file of some sort (usually log or /usr/sap/trans/tmp files).

Is there a way of making an IFS backup 'online' so that it does not lock the files but simply gets a fuzzy copy of the file?

Am I missing something?

Thanks, Andy.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Are you using save-while-active?

This is implemented using the SAVACT(*YES) keyword on the SAV command.

Good luck

Brian

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

unfortunately SAVACT(*YES) is NOT a solution for IFS & SAP, because SAP is NOT tagging the files to be allowed to be backed up while active

=> SAVACT(YES) & SAVACT(NO) behave the same with SAP ...

Regards

Volker Gueldenpfennig, consolut.gmbh

http://www.consolut.de - http://www.4soi.de - http://www.easymarketplace.de

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

We use SAVACT(*YES) and it works as expected.

We do, as you suggest, omit certain directories in addition to using SAVACT(YES), but SAVACT(YES) is helpful in ensuring that additional conflicts are resolved during checkpoint processing.

We omit:

/sapmnt/<sid>/global

/usr/SAP/<sid>/sys/global

Message was edited by:

Brian Sammond

[christian_bartels]

SAP Note 825473 is showing a list of directories and file that can be excluded safely from the backup because they contain only temporary data. This list may not be complete, whenever new directories are found to cause problems during the backup they will be added to the list.

Kind regards,

Christian Bartels.

[Former Member]

You may also want to refer to SAP note 214369 - iSeries: 3029, Resource busy, /usr/sap//SYS/global

This has info on the directories that I noted above that we are excluding and the reasons why.

The note that Christain Bartels included, 825473, in addition to the info on directories to exclude, also has documentation on the use of SAVACT(*YES) which is in fact recommended by SAP.

I did not remember these specific notes when I responded earlier, but they are in agreement with our setup, and it works just fine.

Good luck

Brian

[Former Member]

Thanks guys, I will make the exclusion changes suggested and monitor for improvements. Its a shame if SAVACT(*YES) doesn't work for us.

Andy.

[Former Member]

Hi Andy,

what you prefer, does not exist .... There is a special AS/400 IFS online backup - but this is properitry and is not specially supported.

I would suggest to exclude the global directory /sapmnt/sid/global und /usr/sap/trans/tmp - as long as you backup the trans-dir this could always happen - even when FAR more rarely - because sometimes the other directories are needed as well.

I typically setup the systems that way, that the global directories are not included. In your case you should exclude trans/tmp as well ...

Regards

Volker Gueldenpfennig, consolut.gmbh

http://www.consolut.de - http://www.4soi.de - http://www.easymarketplace.de