CA Wily Tuesday Tip by Hallett German, Sr. Support Engineer for 6/5/2012
You have spent a lot of time getting your APM environment just right to monitor the appropriate applications and return the most useful metrics and statistics. But have you spent as much time getting your environment properly backed up? In this tip, we will look at what, how often, and strengths, and weaknesses with the mechanisms.
One of the first steps is to create a backup inventory which will include at least the following:
- Partitions, Directories, Files, etc. to backup
- Backup mechanisms
- Frequency of backup
- Type of backup (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup under Data Repository Models.) Typically is full or
incremental/differential.
- Storage media
- If placed offsite
From this inventory, one can devise an overall backup philosophy including practices, processes, and resources. This can then be included in a backup/restore plan. In turn, this can be incorporated in the server run book of operational procedures. (Don't have a runbook. Ah, that's a topic for a future tip.)
So what could be included in an APM backup inventory?
What
- Appropriate APM EM directories (such as EM_HOME/config,/data,/ext, /license). For APM CE specific files include tess-
default/tess-customer.properties, HTTP plugins, and evidence collection scripts. For Introscope this includes smartstor data,
startup files management modules, extensions, and calculators.)
- Appropriate APM Agent directories (such as AGENT_HOME/config for custom pbds, startup files), and screenshots of related
application server configuration settings.
- Appropriate WTG/CTG directories (WTG Agent Directories usually starts with wtgagent_agent,RTMC and Tomcat configuration files)
How Often
- In the APM Administrators Guide, the APM Configuration/Administrators Guide lists the following tasks (Full Disclosure: I created the original list.)
1) Daily -- perform APM database (and any other) backup.
2) Weekly -- test APM database (and any other) backup/restore procedures.
Mechanisms
- APM does not include a mechanism to backup the operating system. So it is BYOB (Bring Your Own Backup.) Most companies have
operating system or IT groups that ably handle this requirement
- APM does not include a backup for configuration and non-APM database files. However, since these are just files and directories,
they can be backed up by the same software used to backup your operating system files.
- APM database has three backup mechanisms (Note these are Postgres only)
1) Full Backup which saves APM CE configuration, statistics, and triage map information. This uses the ddbackup compressed
format. A restore replaces everything in the database. Note that in APM 9, this is available through the command line only.
2) Configuration Export which saves APM Configuration only (no statistics). This uses an unpublished, uncompressed XML format.
An import replaces everything in the database. Note that in APM 9, this is available through the command line only.
3) Business Transaction Export which saves the business transactions only (No configuration or statistics). It uses a different
unpublished, uncompressed XML format. This will not wipe out the existing system or statistics. You will have to create the
business application/business service object if using this approach. Note this is available through the GUI only.
- For APM CE, you may also take screenshots of various aspects of the configuration and manually type them in.
(Particularly for APM CE)
- For APM databases on Oracle, you may use a variety of mechanisms to backup or restore. A tech note that I created on using the imp/impdb commands is available at
https://communities.ca.com/documents/2301951/df8b2bda-f5c7-45d4-a55c-c1f19e2ee2b0
Note that all three approaches can be used with server migrations as well.
There are many articles out there, I have included two sample ones:
http://www.lesbell.com.au/Home.nsf/b8ec57204f60dfcb4a2568c60014ed0f/2c051f1c36c2f47eca256ce400760de5?OpenDocument -- Covers backup options for Linux
http://www.pcurtis.com/backup.htm -- Lists sample backup philosophy
Questions for discussion:
1)When did you last backup? When is your next scheduled backup?
2) Do you have a backup inventory, backup philosophy, backup plan, and runbook with a backup plan?
3) Do you have some restore lessons learned that you wish to share?
4) What additional or related topics would you have liked to see the above article include?