Backing up your HMC or Hardware Management Console is an important part of your operational routine. This device is the Window to your P-Series. If you lose your HMC your P-Series and LPARS will continue to function however all of the lpar information will be lost and when you replace the faulty HMC (through IBM or your reseller) you will most likely find you have a blank HMC that won't 'know' about your LPAR configuration.

The example of backing up your systems uses the following:

1 X HMC version 6 release 1.2

1 X Windows machine running the remote HMC client (Web Based System Manager) and running

Step 1. Open up your web based system manager. Choose Licensed Internal Code Maintainence.

Step 2. Click on the HMC code Update. From the right hand pane choose Backup Critical Console Data.

You should get presented with a backup dialog - choose the 'Send Critical Data to remote site' radio button and press next.

Step 3. Enter the details of the FTP server you wish to backup to. In this instance I am using my Laptop with IIS FTP server running. I have allowed anonymous FTP write access I will use the anonymous user account. It will differ depending on the security setup of your particular FTP server.

Step 4. Click OK. The backup process places a test file on the FTP server to test FTP connectivity and access. If successful the critical files are then archived and transfered across to your FTP server. This may take some time as the file it creates and transfers is large > 1 GigaByte. It would be a good time to put the kettle on and make a cup of tea.

Step 5.

That's it. The critical data has been archived up into a single file and transferred to your FTP site. Now you can back that file up in what ever manner that fits into your organisations backup strategy. If and when your HMC goes 'pop' you will be able to recover it and save looking very silly infront of your boss / client.