Originally posted by: Kyne

Is it possible to boot network with NIM
on an ISO image and install the system from this image?

The ISO image is a mksysb of rootvg...

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Or do we absolutely need a product like TSM, for example,
to do some Bare Metal Recovery?

Please, do not send me the doc of NIM, I have it... ;o)

Thanks for all your reply!

Originally posted by: Kyne

I have another question...

If we have 10 different mksysb, is it possible to
create 10 different mksysb resource on the NIM Master?

Originally posted by: tony.evans

NIM allows you to create a spot / other resources, and boot a bare metal power machine / LPAR from that network resource using bootp and tftp.

You can create many different mksysb resources.

Originally posted by: Kyne

Ok, right.

But, If you take a mksysb once a week,
you will have to recreate your "mksysb resouce" each time a
new backup is taken...

Does not make sense... ???

Originally posted by: unixgrl

You wouldn't have to recreate your mksysb resource every time as long as you put
every week's mksysb in the same location with the same name. However, if you are making a SPOT from the mksysb, you'd want to recreate that.

Why would you want to have a NIM resource for every mksysb every week? I hope you aren't having to rebuild systems that often.

Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

Hi Kyne

I think a few wires have got crossed here.

With NIM you can create a resource where you can install your OS, as Tony said, on to a bare metal or to a newly created LPAR which is called a golden image. This has the advantage making the installation a lot quicker than from CD. This only needs to be done for each version of the OS.

You can also use NIM to perform mksysb backups which will be stored on your NIM master. I think you will need to create a NFS filesystem mounted on all the NIM clients and write a script on the NIM master to perform the backups.

If you want too use TSM there is a product which I think is called sysbackup you can buy.

I hope this helps.

Originally posted by: eichher

Create a nim resource for your image and name it for example mksysb_server1. Script your image creation so it creates image with name mksysb_server1.<timestamp> and create a symbolic link to point to mksysb_server1. So you
can always use the same nim entry which points to the actual mksysb.

Originally posted by: tony.evans

Even easier - create NIM resources as required.

Take as many mksysb's as often as you like and put the files where-ever it makes most sense for security purposes.

The day you need them, create NIM resources as required. Creating a mksysb resource is quick, creating a SPOT resource from it is not quick, so of course it depends on what you plan to do with your mksysb's in the longterm.

But you have to expect NIM servers to be in flux, it's the nature of their being, and so the most reliable way to ensure you have what you need when you want to do Job X is to create the NIM resources at that point.

The exception to this of course is NIM machine resources, which you may need in place all the time if you're using NIM to manage your estate. If you're using NIM as a fire-and-forget install environment you don't need to worry about the machine defs.

The NIM mksysb object does record some information about the mksysb it's created from, I would be cautious about leaving the object intact and changing the file underneath it to be honest.

Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

Please note I have seen the cases where creating object i.e SPOT is failing from mksysb Image. It's good practise to create spot of mksysb Immediately after mksysb is done. Just to Ensure you have good backup & can be restored if needed.