[Info-vax] Best "Standalone" boot versions for Alpha and Itanium

[Rich Jordan]

On Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 2:20:09 PM UTC-6, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2016-01-12 20:00:29 +0000, Rich Jordan said:
> 
> > Assuming compatible hardware, which versions of the VMS distribution 
> > media are the best for use as standalone maintenance and backup?
> ...
> > So whats the go to version of VMS for this?
> 
> OpenVMS I64 V8.4 with a recent UPDATE -- haven't shaken out the most 
> recent patch yet, but am not aware of particular BACKUP issues with V5 
> or later -- and probably booted via InfoServer if there's another 
> current-version OpenVMS box around, and booted from disk if not.  Don't 
> boot and use DVD, as it's very slow.   Do use BACKUP /IMAGE /VERIFY.
> 
> If you have a very short window and already have HBVS on your critical 
> disks, then add a "spare" member each of the virtual units (DS disks), 
> allow all copies to finish, shut down and boot, but don't add the 
> backup volume.
> 
> If you really need speed, avoid BACKUP/IMAGE and use a sector copy.   
> BACKUP /PHYSICAL or dd or controller-level, or otherwise.
> 
> BACKUP /IGNORE=INTERLOCK is useful when you only need to pretend to 
> have actual backups.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

Hoff, thanks.

No HBVS.  The drives are mirrored by a SmartArray 6400A or the embedded SAS controller, and there are no spare slots (or drives onsite because the system has HP hardware support still).  There are no other VMS systems onsite, so I'm 95% sure that a DVD boot is the one certain option (however there is a currently unmounted disk that once had a minimal VMS build on it that I'm trying to verify; if it is still there then we could boot from it).  I have a spare DVD combo drive from a same-vintage Proliant that my search says is compatible with the Integrity if the current drive has issues (it has been tested).  And we'll likely carry along a tested spare LTO tape drive, cable, and new media also to be as sure as we can of getting the safe backup.

The movers have recommended we pull at least one drive out of each mirror set for separate transport (and since the ones in the shelves will travel 'on edge' in their cages in a short rack, the ones taken out will travel flat; the movers claim that vertical transport is an issue but I couldn't find anything authoritative).

Yes, verified backups are unconditional, and the test tape backups were done with verification, and the savesets spot checked for recovery (which is all we can do right now).  

Thanks again for the info!  I found the remastered I64084 ISO, trying to confirm what updates it had installed.