Backup and restore feature

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Backup and restore feature

Type of feature

Backup and restore are base features.

About the backup and restore feature

Backup and restore are part of the basic system functionality. You can perform a full or a partial (incremental) system backup. IR R2.0 supports backup and restore over a tape drive and over a LAN connection.

The backup and restore features enable you to do any of the following:

Recover a single failed disk.
Recover a single Solaris file.
Backup all system files.
Incrementally backup specified changed files.
Verify backup while the system is operational.
Schedule backups to run automatically during off hours.
Delete scheduled backups.

Software requirements

This feature requires the Backup and Restore package (AVbackrst). For more information, see Backup and Restore package.

Using this feature

You can administer backup and restore using the Backup and Restore screens in Web Administration or the backup and restback commands. You can use the schedback command or the Setup Backup Schedule screen in Web Administration to automate backups by creating a backup cron job.

Note:
The transfer of large backup and restore images may have a negative impact on network performance, so perform backup and restore operations after working hours.

Avaya strongly recommends creating a full system backup after the system is first installed, configured, and tested, to capture the system configuration, applications, and administration data. In the event of a complete system failure this data can be used to reestablish a base functional system configuration. This backup includes file structures, configured users and passwords, recorded speech, flat files, and application data. Full system backups should be done weekly. Avaya also recommends doing a full system backup after installing or removing software packages, because a partial backup will not capture these changes.

Note:
For a full system backup, the backup process backs up only the disk that contains the root directory. If you purchased a software-only solution and you are not using the Disk Mirroring feature, data on disks that do not contain the root directory will not be backed up.

You should also do a partial backup to capture snapshots of the system data following administration changes or additions. Partial system backups should be performed at regular intervals (daily incremental backups are recommended) to maintain recent data additions. A partial backup is at your discretion and requires you to specify the data to be backed up. Partial backups are used for disaster recovery or mistake recovery, as follows:

For disaster recovery, use the full system backup to restore the system to an operational condition following a catastrophic system failure such as a disk crash, or a complete data corruption. Then load each partial backup that has been run since the full backup.
For mistake recovery, use the partial backup to recover data lost due to mistakes such as accidental deletion.

It is recommended that you stop the voice system when creating partial backups. Partial backups may be invalid or corrupt if made while the voice system is running.

The system provides several methods to create partial backups. The following table describes how to stop the voice system for each method:

Partial backup method	How to stop the voice system
Manually create a partial backup using Partial Backup screen in Web Administration (Backup > Partial Backup).	Select Yes for the Stop the voice system before backup field.
Manually create a partial backup using the backup command	Use the backup command with the -p option. The system displays the following message: `Do you want the voice system stopped before running the backup? (y/n)`. Enter `Y` to stop the voice system.
Schedule a partial backup using the Setup Backup Schedule screen in Web Administration (Backup Scheduling > Setup Schedule).	This method automatically stops the voice system before making the backup. No action required.
Schedule a partial backup using the schedback command.	Use the schedback command with the -p option. The system displays the following message: `Do you want the voice system stopped before running the scheduled backup? (y/n)` Enter `Y` to stop the voice system before the scheduled backup.