David, I guess I disagree. While you are certainly right that there is data cached in memory we ought to look at the scenario that could take place.
If there is transactional data the transaction monitor and/or the database would typically worry about data being written to persistent data store so that in case of an outage you have roll-back or roll-forward capabilities. If there is "on the fly" generated data that nobody worries about if being synced to disk at a particular point in time, a Linux crash would certainly cause data loss for data not flushed to disk yet. If anyone worries about such possible data loss, you better talk to your application provider articulating your concern about its data hardening policy for critical data. If the customer uses GDPS/XRC for data replication of the Linux environment (VM doesn't time stamp its data, though it honours Linux writing timestamps) or alternatively GDPS/PPRC with or without HyperSwap for both, Linux and z/VM they probably get as close as ever possible, minimizing any critical data loss you probably can. And in case of transactional data you typically also have full data consistency assurance. Therewith depending on your data loss objective in case of a disaster scenario a backup like the one TSM usually delivers might be good enough, or more sophisticated concurrent data replication DR setup like the one delivered by like GDPS/XRC or GDPS/PPRC is mandatory - if you have the opportunity integrating Linux into your z/OS BR setup that GDPS provides support for. Best regards, Ingo -- Ingo Adlung, zSeries Linux and Virtualization Architecture mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - phone: +49-7031-16-4263 Linux on 390 Port <LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU> wrote on 04.05.2005 16:36:30: > > I > > was thinking > > to do a "Sync and Drop" process on the Linux volumes , the > > LPAR would remain > > up during this process. Has anyone else already looked at > > this ? > > You will not get a usable backup. This process does not take into > account the data cached in memory. > > > Any ideas what the > > change would > > be if z/VM was in place . > > You still can't use Sync and Drop reliably. You need a backup solution > that is aware of what's going on inside the Linux system, eg something > with a Linux client like Bacula or TSM. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390