Print-friendly Version

Using Flash Archive in the Solaris OS for Disaster Recovery, Part 3

Joseph Gan, March 2006

In my article Using Flash Archive in the Solaris Operating System for Disaster Recovery, Part 2, I mentioned that both primary and recovery servers need to have the same or higher minimum supported versions of the Solaris OS. This has become more and more important because many new Sun machines are available to choose from, and support from Sun is no longer available for many old machines.

For example, if an old Sun Enterprise server were destroyed by a disaster, it is unlikely that the replacement would be the same model. Even if you have a good archive image in hand, it might be useless, only because the new server requires an OS revision higher than the old one. This is true even though both machines have the same architecture.

One way to solve this problem is to keep upgrading the OS on the master machine. However, upgrading a server not only takes time for preparation, it also takes a lot of downtime. And after the OS upgrade, you may have lots of third-party packages, optional products, in-house security settings, scripts, and configurations to be reapplied. All of this takes a lot of resources.

Using the Solaris Live Upgrade function not only can save system downtime by upgrading the OS online, but it also supports the "inter-release" upgrade. For example, in the Solaris 8 OS, you can live upgrade from one revision (Solaris 8 OS 02/02) to another (Solaris 8 OS 02/04); also in the Solaris 9 OS, you can upgrade from one revision to another, and so on. After that, you can use it to support disaster recovery between different server platforms.

However, Solaris Live Upgrade technology will not support upgrading the OS to different software groups. For example, if the master machine's OS was installed as group distribution, after upgrading, the OS is still in group distribution. This means it may not support recovery onto other, newer platforms.

If you are in the situations previously mentioned, using the Solaris OS installation CD or DVD to upgrade the OS is your only option. You can use it to upgrade the OS on the master machine to the latest "inter-release" and to upgrade the software group to Entire Distribution plus OEM in one go, in order to support disaster recovery.

Using the Solaris 8 OS as an example, the original master machine installed the Solaris 8 OS revision 02/02 with Entire Distribution software group, upgrading it to the Solaris 8 OS revision 02/04 with Entire Distribution plus OEM software group. The following steps were used:

Boot from the Solaris 8 (02/04) Software (1 of 2) CD.

   ok boot cdrom

   Select Language: 0 (English)
   Select Locale: 2 (Australia)

   Welcome screen
     continue, help
   Identify this system
     continue, help
   Networked
     yes, no
     continue, help
   Use DHCP
     yes, no
     continue, help
   Host name
     hostname
     continue, help
   IP address
     xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx
     continue, help
   Enable IPv6
     yes, no
     continue, help
   Confirm
     continue, change, help
   Configure Kerberos Security
     yes, no
     continue, help
   Confirm
     continue, change, help
   Name service
     NIS+, NIS, Other, None
     continue, help
   Confirm
     continue, change, help
   Part of subnet
     yes, no
     continue, help
   Netmask
     xxx.xxx.xxx.0
     continue, help
   Time zone specified by
     Geographic Region, Offset from GMT, Timezone File
     set..., help
   Geographic Region
     <list of regions>, <list of timezones> Australia/NSW
     continue, cancel, help
   Date and time
     2005, <month>, <day>, <hour>, <minute>
     continue, help
   Confirm
     continue, change, help
   Install Solaris - Initial
     continue, exit, help
   Upgrade?
     upgrade, initial, exit, help
    Software
      entire+OEM, entire, developer, end user, core
      continue, go back, customize, exit, help
    Disks to install Solaris on
      <list of available disks>, <list of selected disks>
      continue, go back, exit, help
    Preserve data
      continue, go back, preserve..., exit, help
    Auto layout file systems
      auto-layout, go back, manual layout, exit, help
   File system and disk layout
     <disks listed>
     continue, go back, customize..., exit, help
   Mount remote file systems
     continue, go back, remote mounts..., exit, help
   Profile
     begin install, change, exit, help
   OK to reboot after install
     reboot, no

   Enter root password

Exchange the second CD (Solaris 8 software 2 of 2 CDs) and continue installation.

Once the installation is done, you have a machine ready to support disaster recovery backup.

Note: You can't change basic system identification, such as the host name or IP address. Otherwise, the installation might fail.

Unless otherwise licensed, code in all technical manuals herein (including articles, FAQs, samples) is provided under this License.