Restore an integrated Windows server's NWSD and disk drives

One method of restoring your integrated server data is to restore the Network Server Description (NWSD) and disk drives that i5/OS™ associates with that server. It is the fastest method for restoring large amounts of data. If you used file-level backup, you can also restore specific integrated server files.

When you restore saved objects from i5/OS, you need to be aware of these considerations:

Notes:

  1. Treat a network server description (NWSD), its predefined disk drives (see Predefined disk drives for integrated Windows servers), and any user-defined disk drives that are linked to it as a unit. Restore them at the same time. Otherwise, the integrated server may not be able to re-establish items such as Windows server File System permissions.
  2. To have i5/OS automatically relink restored disk drives in the integrated file system to the appropriate NWSD, restore the NWSD after you restore the disk drives.
  3. If you restore an NWSD before restoring the predefined and user-defined disk drives in the integrated file system, you need to relink those disk drives. You can do this by using the Add Network Server Storage Link (ADDNWSSTGL) command for each disk drive that is associated with the NWSD: 

    ADDNWSSTGL NWSSTG(Storage_Name) NWSD(NWSD_Name)
  4. When you restore a domain controller, ensure that the domain database held on the server is synchronized with the other domain controllers. When restoring shared drives used by a Windows cluster node, it may be necessary to manually relink the shared drives. Begin by linking the shared quorum resource drive first. You can use the following command to link the shared quorum resource drive: 

         ADDNWSSTGL NWSSTG(Quorum_name) NWSD(NWSD_Name) ACCESS(*SHRUPD) DYNAMIC(*YES) DRVSEQNBR(*QR)

    Once the quorum resource has been relinked, the remaining shared drives can then be re-linked as well. Use the following command to relink the remaining shared drives:

         ADDNWSSTGL NWSSTG(Shared_name) NWSD(NWSD_Name) ACCESS(*SHRUPD) DYNAMIC(*YES) DRVSEQNBR(*CALC)

    Follow normal Windows procedures to do this and refer to documentation from Microsoft® as necessary.

  5. Restoring NWSD installed on certain hardware types to different hardware type may be restricted. For more information, see Restore integrated Windows server NWSDs.

To restore an integrated server's NWSD and disk drives, refer to these pages: