1.4.3 Backing Up the Cluster

While not specifically discussed in this guide, it is important to back up your cluster on a regular basis. Even though Sun Cluster provides an HA environment, with mirrored copies of data on the storage devices, do not consider this a replacement for regular backups. Sun Cluster can survive multiple failures, but not a catastrophic failure in which all data is rendered unavailable. Therefore, you must have a backup procedure in place to protect against catastrophic data loss. Backups are also important to undo user or program errors.

The following information should be included as part of your backup.

• All file system partitions

• All database data if you are running DBMS data services

• Disk partition information for all cluster disks

• The md.tab file if you are using Solstice DiskSuite^TM as your volume manager