InfoScale™ 9.0 Storage and Availability Management for DB2 Databases - AIX, Linux
- Section I. Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) management solutions for DB2 databases
- Overview of Storage Foundation for Databases
- About Veritas File System
- Overview of Storage Foundation for Databases
- Section II. Deploying DB2 with InfoScale products
- Deployment options for DB2 in a Storage Foundation environment
- Deploying DB2 with Storage Foundation
- Deploying DB2 in an off-host configuration with Storage Foundation
- Deploying DB2 with High Availability
- Deployment options for DB2 in a Storage Foundation environment
- Section III. Configuring Storage Foundation for Database (SFDB) tools
- Configuring and managing the Storage Foundation for Databases repository database
- Configuring the Storage Foundation for Databases (SFDB) tools repository
- Configuring authentication for Storage Foundation for Databases (SFDB) tools
- Configuring and managing the Storage Foundation for Databases repository database
- Section IV. Improving DB2 database performance
- About database accelerators
- Improving database performance with Quick I/O
- About Quick I/O
- Improving DB2 database performance with Veritas Concurrent I/O
- Section V. Using point-in-time copies
- Understanding point-in-time copy methods
- Volume-level snapshots
- Storage Checkpoints
- Considerations for DB2 point-in-time copies
- Administering third-mirror break-off snapshots
- Administering Storage Checkpoints
- Database Storage Checkpoints for recovery
- Backing up and restoring with Netbackup in an SFHA environment
- Understanding point-in-time copy methods
- Section VI. Optimizing storage costs for DB2
- Section VII. Storage Foundation for Databases administrative reference
- Storage Foundation for Databases command reference
- Tuning for Storage Foundation for Databases
- Troubleshooting SFDB tools
About Storage Checkpoints
Veritas File System (VxFS) provides a Storage Checkpoint feature that quickly creates a persistent image of a file system at an exact point in time. Storage Checkpoints significantly reduce I/O overhead by identifying and maintaining only the file system blocks that have changed since the last Storage Checkpoint or backup via a copy-on-write technique.
See Copy-on-write.
Storage Checkpoints provide:
Persistence through reboots and crashes.
The ability for data to be immediately writeable by preserving the file system metadata, the directory hierarchy, and user data.
Storage Checkpoints are actually data objects that are managed and controlled by the file system. You can create, remove, and rename Storage Checkpoints because they are data objects with associated names.
See How a Storage Checkpoint works.
Unlike a disk-based mirroring technology that requires a separate storage space, Storage Checkpoints minimize the use of disk space by using a Storage Checkpoint within the same free space available to the file system.
After you create a Storage Checkpoint of a mounted file system, you can also continue to create, remove, and update files on the file system without affecting the logical image of the Storage Checkpoint. A Storage Checkpoint preserves not only the name space (directory hierarchy) of the file system, but also the user data as it existed at the moment the file system image was captured.
You can use a Storage Checkpoint in many ways. For example, you can use them to:
Create a stable image of the file system that can be backed up to tape.
Provide a mounted, on-disk backup of the file system so that end users can restore their own files in the event of accidental deletion. This is especially useful in a home directory, engineering, or email environment.
Create a copy of an application's binaries before installing a patch to allow for rollback in case of problems.
Create an on-disk backup of the file system in that can be used in addition to a traditional tape-based backup to provide faster backup and restore capabilities.
Test new software on a point-in-time image of the primary fileset without jeopardizing the live data in the current primary fileset by mounting the Storage Checkpoints as writable.