Backup & Restore

[sivatek]

Dear Experts

We are planning to migrate from AIX 4.3.3 to 5.1. In this regard I am facing a tricky question from Users: This is what they ask:

After the Upgrade, if they run applications and find out a bug after a 10 or 15 days and then re-install 4.3.3. In this case, can the data volume groups or file systems will work with AIX 4.3.3? (The flow is 4.3.3 -> 5 -> 4.3.3)

What do you feel?

We are taking backups with Storix. And applications we are running is Redbrick, DataStage.

Thanks

 

[comtec17]

My advice is to do this on a development server first.

 

[RodKnowlton]

Trying it out on development server is a great idea if you have one.

Even if you don't, you should be okay as long as your just migrating the operating system and not actually creating new data volume groups or making use of new filesystem options (JFS2).

I'm not familiar with your applications, but one thing that usually prevents us (uniVerse, SB+, CSC MHC) from being able to roll back an upgrade is that there's an upgrade to the apps that has to take place at the same time as the OS. This usually results in database files that are no longer compatible with the previous versions. If this is the case, be sure to have a full (mksysb and full data) backup thoroughly tested before upgrading, and make sure the users understand that any rollback will mean the loss of 10-15 days of data. Whether this is an acceptable risk will have to be their decision. Again, this scenario only applies if there are corequisite upgrades to your applications.



Rod Knowlton
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L