Process for making repository backup for SAM/APM domains

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance
• VMware Telco Cloud Service Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Details the orocess for making repository backup for SAM/APM domains, and details useage/limitations for using sm_server or brstart commands to back up Smarts IP and Smarts SAM domains?

Environment

Smarts 10.X / 2.X

Resolution

There is no --backup option available for the Smarts sm_server command. Smarts uses the sm_server command to start Smarts services like SAM/APM. There is a backup option available with the brstart command that Smarts uses to start the Smarts domain broker, but it is not used to back up Smarts SAM and Smarts IP APM domain repositories.

To make a backup of the Smarts SAM and Smarts IP APM domain repositories, you must save the domain repository manually from the command line. You can automate the backup process based on the platform environment by adding the repository save commands specified in this article to a cronjob, and then scheduling the job to run at the desired backup interval.

The following sections provide more details on Smarts sm_server and brstart commands:

• Smarts sm_server command
  
  • The Smarts sm_server command is used to start a Server. The first time a particular server is started a default set of policies and groups are loaded into the server. When the server is subsequently started it will reload the policies, groups, and object topology saved from its previous run.
  • Upon start-up, the server initializes all installed applications. If the object topology is restored from a saved file an automatic reprobe of all objects in the topology is initiated to ensure that any changes to managed devices while the server was shutdown are properly reflected in the server's topology.
  • All configuration parameters can be changed later via the graphical user interface Global Console.
• Smarts brstart command
  
  • The brstart command is used to start a Broker. The Broker is a special server process that keeps track of locations of Domain Manager servers (see dmstart).
  • Servers interact with the Broker automatically to inform the Broker of their location. Client processes can refer to servers only by their name.
  • The exact location of a given server name is automatically retrieved from the Broker.
• Smarts brstart "backup" option (backup=file | -b file)
  
  • This option backs up a file on the server host to store the Broker state.
  • Default directory is

BASEDIR/repos/broker/broker.rps

• • • where BASEDIR is the directory in which the software is installed. If file already exists, it will be overwritten.