There are occasions where we need to take a reliable, full, off-line backup of the AMX environment, such as:

- Upgrading a Production environment (e.g., major/minor version upgrade, applying a Hotfix, etc.)

- Deploying/upgrading applications in Production

- Other test or explorative user actions which may possibly damage an environment

Under such circumstances we need a way to take a reliable, full, off-line backup of the AMX environment, such that in case of any unrecoverable issues we have an option to roll back to the last working status of the environment.

All Supported OS Platforms

Here are the steps:

1. Shut down all TIBCO processes in this ActiveMatrix (AMX) environment, such as SystemHost(Replica), SystemNode(Replica), remote hosts, remote nodes, and EMS servers. If the hosts/nodes are stopped from the Admin server (via GUI or CLI), then double check the OS processes to make sure that those hosts and nodes have been stopped successfully.

2. Database backup. Please take a backup of the AMX Admin DB schema and EMS data stores.

3. File Systems backup.

  <TIBCO_HOME> folder - from all servers (machines) including AMX Administrator servers / remote host servers / EMS servers. Preserve timestamps, please. 

  <CONFIG_HOME> folder - from all servers (machines) including AMX Administrator servers / remote host servers / EMS servers. Preserve timestamps, please. 
  
  SHARED_MOUNT - as used by AMX (shared admin folder) / BPM / EMS (as applicable). Preserve timestamps, please. 

4. (Optional) Verify data integrity of file system copy, e.g. using Checksums.

Note 1: "Off-line" backup means that the above Databases and File Systems on all servers are backed up after all the TIBCO hosts, nodes, and EMS processes are shut down, so a consistent "snapshot" of the AMX environment is obtained.

Note 2: If Virtual Machines (VMs) are used to host the AMX hosts, nodes, and EMS servers, then it is highly recommended to take snapshots of the VMs. VM snapshoting is faster, more convenient, and more reliable than file systems backup.

Note 3: SSL and security certificates etc. of AMX / EMS processes (e.g., certs for HTTP Connector, for EMS Server, for JMS Connection Factory, for JDBC connection, for LDAP connection, etc.) are assumed to be placed in <config_home> , <tibco_home>, or shared file systems. If placed anywhere other than the aforementioned, then customer should take a backup of those certificates in the above step #3.

How to take a reliable, full, off-line backup of an ActiveMatrix environment