HCL Informix Backup in Cloud DIRECT BACKUPS TO IBM SOFTLAYER USING PSM

                                                                                                            Updated: 8/30/18

With the release of HCL Informix Dynamic Server 12.10.xC10 we are adding a capability in our Primary Storage Manager to store/retrieve backups directly to the ecosystem of selected cloud providers, namely Amazon S3 and IBM Softlayer Object Storage.

This is the second part of the HCL Informix Backup in the Cloud series. In this article, we will walk you through an example to use the IBM Softlayer Cloud.

SoftLayer

Softlayer (aka IBM Cloud) is an IBM company that provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It is based in an open source infrastructure called OpenStack and its Object Storage solution is based on SWIFT which is part of OpenStack.

In order to use Softlayer you will, of course, need an account with them. Some of the steps to get this working will be done in the Softlayer Control Panel.

Disclaimer

In this article, we are granting our user, full, unrestricted access to your Object Storage environment, which in all likelihood is not what a secure, production level system will need. You will need to design your own permissions and access according to your company’s policies and needs. This is a simple example on how to get a user ready to be used with the Primary Storage manager.

Create An Account

In order to use Softlayer Object Storage you need to create an account name that will be used to access the data. This account is assigned an API type that cannot be changed. The API type can be S3 or SWIFT. We need a SWIFT type of API. The S3 API from Softlayer is not yet supported by HCL Informix.

Once the account has been created you can retrieve the Credentials which will include   an authentication endpoint (URL) both private and public, a username, and a Key or password. 
If you have a machine with access to the internal private network to Soflayer you should use the private URL if not you should use the public one. 

The SoftLayer Container

A container is the basic unit of storage in Softlayer Object Storage (SOS). When a user stores data using the SOS, it is encapsulated into a object.

The object has a name as a main attribute and this name may include a path-like structure, however the similarities with a file path end there. 

The first level of the path is considered to be the container, containers cannot be nested although if you see files in the GUI from the control panel you will see that they are grouped to form a path-like structure. 

The PSM command line will request you to provide a container, you can provide any name you want, the container does not need to be created in the SOFTLAYER GUI, it will be created automatically by PSM. 

Create A Primary Storage Manager (PSM) Device

At this point the configuration in SOS is done, you just need to configure the Primary Storage Manager to use the Bucket and Credentials you just created.  

In order to use the PSM with the SOS Bucket you just created you need to create a device in PSM of type CLOUD using SWIFT as provider. 

In this command line:

Check the device was created:

Take a Level Zero Backup

Check Backup Data is in your container
The backup data is organized using the INFORMIXSERVER, for example, in the next picture there is backup data from 6 different HCL Informix instances: atmol102, file3, file4, file5 and file6 in the ifmx_dev container: 

Gustavo Castro
Senior Solutions Architect at HCL 
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Informix is a trademark of IBM Corporation in at least one jurisdiction and is used under license.