Administrator's Guide

Restoring Storage Pool Volumes

An administrator can recreate files in primary storage pool volumes using copies in a copy storage pool by issuing the RESTORE VOLUME command.

Task	Required Privilege Class
Restore volumes in any storage pool for which they have authority	System, unrestricted storage, or restricted storage

Use the RESTORE VOLUME command to restore all files that are currently stored on one or more volumes in the same primary storage pool, and that were previously backed up to copy storage pools by using the BACKUP STGPOOL command.

When using the RESTORE VOLUME command, be prepared to supply some or all of the following information:

Volume name

Specifies the name of the volume in the primary storage pool for which to restore files.

Tip:	To restore more than one volume in the same primary storage pool, issue this command once and specify a list of volumes to be restored. When you specify more than one volume, ADSM attempts to minimize volume mounts for the copy storage pool.

Copy storage pool name

Specifies the name of the copy pool from which the files are to be restored. This information is optional. If you do not specify a particular copy storage pool, ADSM restores the files from any copy storage pool where it can find them.

New storage pool

Specifies the name of the new primary storage pool to which to restore the files. This information is optional. If you do not specify a new storage pool, ADSM restores the files to the original primary storage pool.

Maximum number of processes

Specifies the maximum number of parallel processes that are used for restoring files.

Preview

Specifies whether you want to preview the restore operation without actually restoring data.

See "Recovering a Lost or Damaged Storage Pool Volume" for an example of using the RESTORE VOLUME command.

What Happens When a Volume Is Restored

When you restore a volume, ADSM obtains a copy of each file that was on the volume from a copy storage pool, and then stores the files on a different volume.

Cached Files:

Cached copies of files in a disk storage pool are never restored. References to any cached files that reside on a volume that is being restored are removed from the database during restore processing.

After files are restored, the old references to these files in the primary storage pool are deleted from the database. ADSM will now locate these files on the volumes to which they were restored, rather than on the volume on which they were previously stored.

This command changes the access mode of the volumes being restored to destroyed. When the restoration is complete (when all files on the volume are restored to other locations), the destroyed volume is empty and is then automatically deleted from the database.

The RESTORE VOLUME command generates a background process that can be canceled with the CANCEL PROCESS command. If a RESTORE VOLUME background process is canceled, some files may have already been restored prior to the cancellation. To display information on background processes, use the QUERY PROCESS command.

The RESTORE VOLUME command may be run in the foreground on an administrative client by issuing the command with the WAIT=YES parameter.

When a Volume Restoration Is Incomplete

The restoration of a volume may be incomplete. Use the QUERY CONTENT command to get more information on the remaining files on volumes for which restoration was incomplete. The restoration may be incomplete for one or more of the following reasons:

• Files were either never backed up or the backup copies are marked as damaged.

• A copy storage pool was specified on the RESTORE command, but files were backed up to a different copy storage pool. If you suspect this is a problem, use the RESTORE command again without specifying a copy storage pool from which to restore files. The PREVIEW option can be used on the second RESTORE command, if you do not actually want to restore files.

• Volumes in the copy storage pool needed to perform the restore operation are offsite or unavailable. Check the activity log for messages that occurred during restore processing.

• Backup file copies in copy storage pools were moved or deleted by other ADSM processes during restore processing. To prevent this problem, do not issue the following commands for copy storage pool volumes while restore processing is in progress:
  • MOVE DATA
  • DELETE VOLUME (DISCARDDATA=YES)
  • AUDIT VOLUME (FIX=YES)

  Also, you can prevent reclamation processing for your copy storage pools by setting the RECLAIM parameter to 100 with the UPDATE STGPOOL command.