Recovering a system from Flash Archive

[vesposito]

Does anyone have any info regarding possible pitfalls when recovering a solaris 8 system from flash archive?

The specific issue I'm wondering about is based on the fact that my client will be providing a flash image from an e450 that will be laid down on a V880 for their DR excercise. What issue might I expect to run into taking a flash image made on one architecture and placing it on a second architecture?

 

[cndcadams]

I am 99% sure you can not do that, system needs to be replica of original. You would need to make a flash image of a similar V880 in order to flash other v880. The flash images can be held on any system from what I remember.
Thanks

CA

 

[bfitzmai]

I agree with CA... I would think the device paths differ between the 2 servers. When you reboot, you would not be able to find the boot device.

 

[vesposito]

Do you think it might work if I rebuilt the path_to_inst file at reboot time?

 

[cndcadams]

I believe you would be in a world of hurt? It is never suggested to edit path_to_inst(although I do when needed). Also I think there would be much more involved then just editing this file. My suggestion is to have the customer create a flash off their present server when downtime is available. The flash will grab the present configuration both software and hardware. If they really want an exact picture of their present system then this is the way it should go.

I am not trying to discourage you from trying it but I think you are setting yourself up for weeks of work that most likely will not pay off.

If you do try this, and by the grace of a higher power it works, let us know the procedure you come up with as it may help people in the future.

P.S, I would not waste your valuable time.

Thanks

CA

 

[cndcadams]

Not sure why I did not think of this before but you really would not need to edit the file, just get a copy of the customers path_to_inst and replace the one from the 450.
That is if you still want to try this.

CA

 

[vesposito]

A collegue suggests that the recovery is likely to work if the client creates their flash image off an install that was done with the full OEM distribution- his reasoning is that teh real issue is with having the appropriate drivers for the PCI based hardware (vs SCSI on the 450) rather than actual device mapping. I'm not really 100% comfortable with either assumption.

In any case, my main task is to evaluate DR process- so if I run into trouble I'm more worried about having viable recommendations- if all else fails I can give them a clean jumpstart image to work off of, provided they know the correct path levels they need to allow their oracle environment to work.

Vincent Esposito
Sun Recovery Specialist
SunGard Availability Services

 

[coffeysm]

That will work I have an image I built of an Sun Blade 100 and I have used it on V880, V480, Ultra 5's, Ultra 10's, Sun Blade 2000's, and Sun Blade 2500's. As long as they are all SUN4U architecture it will work for you. As long as you use the latest version of Solaris 8, it will work on any server. I used Solaris 8 02/04 and Entire Distribution plus OEM.

 

[ag100]

You shouldn't have any problems, at all. The only time I've seen any issues is when recovering a PCI to S-BUS based system AND the entire distribution was not installed.

-ag100