A standard TSM incremental backup will generally scan the entire client file systems and checks if there is any files are eligible for backup. This whole process has to be done in the allocated backup window and often backup window is generally 6-8 hours a day. Suppose if the server has millions of files to be scanned daily to get the list of files which are eligible for backup, the backup window might not be sufficient and the backup schedule might end-up in failure. To address this issue, TSM offers Journal based backup. A journal based backup maintains the record of files that are changed during the business hours and during backup window, the TSM BA client gets this information from the Journal instead of contacting with client & TSM DB.
For example, If you had a journal that was updated every time a file changed then you could just read that journal, no need to scan a file system or check against the TSM database. This is exactly what TSM Journal Based Backup does. A TSM Journal Daemon process runs on the client and traps file changes as they happen then records them in a journal file. A TSM backup then reads the journal file. New or update file or directory events cause those objects to be backed up, while delete events are passed to TSM for deletion processing. The journal will contain only one entry for each object, recording the latest change to that object. Once a journal entry is processed, TSM deletes it from the journal file.
For example, If you had a journal that was updated every time a file changed then you could just read that journal, no need to scan a file system or check against the TSM database. This is exactly what TSM Journal Based Backup does. A TSM Journal Daemon process runs on the client and traps file changes as they happen then records them in a journal file. A TSM backup then reads the journal file. New or update file or directory events cause those objects to be backed up, while delete events are passed to TSM for deletion processing. The journal will contain only one entry for each object, recording the latest change to that object. Once a journal entry is processed, TSM deletes it from the journal file.
Journaling does not work well with very active file systems as the
journals quickly become large and processing them almost takes as much
effort as processing the filespace. Journaling works very well for large
archive file systems that contain millions of files, but only a few
hundred of them change every day.
Also Read: Different types of Incremental Backups
However even then it should not be used to completely replace a true incremental backup as some types of file change can be missed by journaling and some file deletions might be missed if the system is very busy. IBM recommends that if you use journaling, you still schedule an occasional full incremental backup. Journal based backups can be implemented on Windows and AIX clients.
Also Read: How to take online image backups
You can also try taking online image backups in these scenarios if individual file restore is not a concern in your environment. Because with image backup you can only restore entire filesystems but you cannot restore individual files.
Also Read: Different types of Incremental Backups
However even then it should not be used to completely replace a true incremental backup as some types of file change can be missed by journaling and some file deletions might be missed if the system is very busy. IBM recommends that if you use journaling, you still schedule an occasional full incremental backup. Journal based backups can be implemented on Windows and AIX clients.
Also Read: How to take online image backups
You can also try taking online image backups in these scenarios if individual file restore is not a concern in your environment. Because with image backup you can only restore entire filesystems but you cannot restore individual files.
How to install and configure Journal Based backup ?
Follow these below steps to install and configure TSM journal based backups
- Install the journal service
- Update the journal configuration file
- Run a full incremental backup to initialise journaling
Installing the TSM Journal Service
The journal service comes inbuilt with the TSM BA client software. You can install this from the GUI with the TSM Journal Setup Wizard, or from the command line using dsmcutil. You can mostly do the install with the GUI by taking defaults so I've
only mentioned changes to the defaults in the actions below.
- Start the TSM Backup-Archive GUI and take Select > Utilities> Setup Wizard
- Select "Help me configure the TSM Journal Engine" > Select Next
- Select "Install a new TSM Journal Engine"> Select Next
- Select the appropriate File System(s) for the Journal Engine to monitor. You don't have to journal all your file systems, and in fact, journaling will not be appropriate for all your file systems.
- For each file system, specify the location where the journal will be written, the notification filters and the journal database size. You can take the defaults on all of these.
- Select Yes to "Would you like to start the service upon completion of this wizard?" > Select Next > Select Finish
Without using the wizard, you can create your tsmjbbd1.ini file as below then run the command.
dsmcutil install journal /name:"TSM journal service name" /JBBCONFIGFILE:"c:\path\tsmjbbd.ini"
Configuring the Journal Service
JournalDBSize
This is the maximum journal database size (in bytes) for a journaled
filesystem. A setting of JournalDBSize=0x00000000 means the journal can
grow up to 2 gigabytes subject to that amount of space being available.
NotifyFilter (Windows only)
Specifies what types of filesystem activity to monitor for a
journaled filesystem. Specifying a less comprehensive filter value may
reduce the size of journals and improve performance. Probably best to go
with the IBM default here, which is NotifyFilter=0x00000117. Possible
other values are
0x00000001 File name changes including create, delete and rename
0x00000004 Attribute changes
0x00000008 Size changes, notification is deferred until cache is flushed
0x00000010 Last written time changes, notification is deferred until cache is flushed
0x00000020 Last access time changes
0x00000040 Creation time changes
0x00000100 Security (acl) changes
Multiple activities may be monitored by adding values together. But
when adding up, remember these are hex values. You can also change this
setting for each individual filespace.
A list of file systems separated by spaces, that you want to journal.
They can be local fixed drives, Windows 2000 mount points or AIX
virtual mount points but not network or removable filesystems.
Adding an extra file system to an existing journal system is quite
simple, for example to add a G: just edit tsmjbbd.ini and look for a
line that looks something like
JournaledFileSystems=E: F:
Add your new file system on the end, separated by a space
JournaledFileSystems=E: F: G:
There may also be overrides for specific file systems so you will
need to consider if you want to add them in for your system, for example
[JournaledFileSystemSettings.G:\]
JournalDBSize=0x00000000
There is no need to restart the journaling service, the next backup
will run as a standard incremental and will build the journal database.
Subsequent backups will read the journal database to get the files that
require a backup.
Journaldir
Specifies the directory where journal database files are stored and
written. The default Windows directory is the Journal Service install
directory and the journals for all journaled file systems will be placed
there. This is not suitable for drives that can take part in cluster
failover operations, as in this case you want your journal to fail over
with the filespace that is being journaled. The easiest way to do this
is to provide overrides for each clustered filespace using the
JournaledFileSystemSettings stanza as shown below.
The JournaledFileSystemSettings stanza mentioned above can be used to
change the default settings for any individual file system, for example
[JournaledFileSystemSettings.G:\]
JournalDBSize=0x00000000
JournalDir=G:\TSMlogs
Will set the journal size to unlimited and change the journal location to be on the same drive as the data being backed up.
Also Read: Use these 2 TSM server options to prevent network issues during backup schedules
Also Read: Use these 2 TSM server options to prevent network issues during backup schedules
PreserveDBOnExit
If you take a journaled file system offline then the default action
is to delete the journal, then when the system comes back online again
you need to run a fresh full incremental backup before you can start
journaling again. This is a safety feature to protect against any
external updates or errors, but you can override this by specifying
PreserveDBonExit 1
If you don't specify this parameter then the journals are
re-initialised every time the server is rebooted or a cluster fails
over. This can be painful, so consider carefully which action you want
and use the parameter as appropriate. Note that there is an error in the
Windows sample journal file, where this parameter is called PreserverDBonExit. Remove that extra 'r' or the parameter will be ignored.
JournalExcludeList
Journaling does not read the dsm.opt file to find out which files
should never be backed up, it has its own list of excludes in the
tsmjbbd.ini file. You may need to add excludes to both files to ensure
files are not backed up by either standard or journalled backups. Note
that the syntax in tsmjbbd.ini is not quite the same as in dsm.opt. The
major difference is that you use /*/ to exclude a set of directories
instead of /.../ Some examples are:
[JournalExcludeList]
%:\*\*test*.txt any file with test in the name
c:\*\temp\*.* any temp directory
c:\winnt\system32\*.* all the files in a specific directory
c:\dir1\*\*.txt al text files in dir1 and all subdirectories
DeferFsMonStart and DeferRetryInterval
Another setting that is useful for clustered filespaces, where the
shared resources can move around the various nodes in a cluster. If
DeferFsMonStart is set to 1 this means that a journaled file system will
not be brought online until the filesystem is valid and available and
the specified journal directory can be created or accessed. The
DeferRetryInterval setting determines the interval beween resource
checking. The default setting for DeferFsMonStart is 0 which means that
if journaled file systems are unavailable or inaccessible then the
journal service must be recycled before they will be restarted.
Enabling Journal based backup on AIX Server
On AIX, IBM provides a sample configuration file called
tsmjbbd.ini.smp. You need to edit this file then save it as tsmjbbd.ini.
Both the configuration sample file and the saved file should be in the
default install directory. The journal configuration file,
(tsmjbbd.ini), needs as a minimum a list of the file systems to monitor.
These two lines are sufficient:
[JournaledFilesystemSettings]
JournaledFileSystems=/home
After the configuration file is created, start the journal daemon
using the script file:/usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/rc.tsmjbb. The
journal will write initialization information to the errorlog. When you
are satisfied that the journal is working correctly, you should run the
script file, /usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/jbbinittab. Running the
script file will make entries in /etc/inittab, so that the journal will
begin running when you restart your system.
Also Read: Full vs Differential vs Incremental vs Progressive Incremental Backups
Also Read: Full vs Differential vs Incremental vs Progressive Incremental Backups
Initialising Journalling
Before journaling will start you must take a normal, full incremental
backup. Once this completes and updates the Last Backup Completion Date
on the TSM server, the change journal is marked as valid and the next
backup will be a journaled backup. Note that if you need to recover your
TSM server database for any reason, all your client change journals
will be marked as invalid and the next backup run will be full
incrementals.
How do we verify if journal based backup is working ?
When a backup is journal based, the backup client will display the following messages when the journal backup begins:
"Querying Journal for '\\hostname\f$'"
Processing X Journal entries for '\\hostname\f$
If journal backup isn't possible, the client will always try to a take a normal non-journal based backup which is the regular incremental backup.
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