Saving and restoring data and programs allows recovery from a program or server failure, exchange of information between servers, or storage of objects or data offline. A sound backup policy at each server in the distributed relational database network ensures that a server can be restored and made available to network users quickly in the event of a problem.
Saving the server on external media such as tape, protects server programs and data from disasters, such as fire or flood. However, information can also be saved to a disk file called a save file. A save file is a disk-resident file used to store data until it is used in input and output operations or for transmission to another iSeries™ server over communication lines. Using a save file allows unattended save operations because an operator does not need to load tapes. In a distributed relational database, save files can be sent to another server as a protection method.
When information is restored, the information is written from tape or a save file into auxiliary storage where it can be accessed by server users.
The iSeries server has a full set of commands to save and restore your database tables and SQL objects: