Automated backups help satisfy your auditor.

No one likes to be audited, whether it's for SOX, PCI, HIPAA, or some other regulation that you must comply with. When you back up your IBM i data, you need to produce supporting documents that show what you back up, who backed it up, and how you can restore it. The information is available, and you certainly can piece it together manually, but do you really want to do that every time you're audited?

When your backups are automated, you can easily find the appropriate reports to help you pass your audits. Auditors want proof that you back up your data, that the backups are secure, and that you can restore from them. One reason I love the IBM i platform is that you can successfully restore the system every time at a hot site—whether for a DR test or following a real disaster. The other reason is that backup and recovery can be completely automated.

Automation Provides History

Robot/SAVE, our backup and recovery software for IBM i, has been helping customers for years by automating backups, automating reporting about backups, automating restores, and automating reporting about restores. Many of today's regulations not only want notification about backups, but also want to know when a user performs a restore. Robot/SAVE tracks all this information in its completion history; it summarizes the success and failure of backups along with any restore activity (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Robot/SAVE Completion History shows all backup and restore activity. (Click images to enlarge.)

Automation Provides Documentation

Auditors want to see documentation about how your backups are set up, a summary of the systems being backed up, and reports that show you how to restore from the backup. Robot/SAVE provides a comprehensive selection of reports that document all this information. If you need a report for the auditor that shows how you back up your system, you can just run it. It really is that simple. One especially useful report is the Good Morning report, which summarizes all volume activity under Robot/SAVE's control (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: The Good Morning report summarizes volume activity across your systems.

Automation Makes Recovery Painless

Of course, the most important aspect of any backup is the ability to restore your data (or system) when necessary. Robot/SAVE prints a step-by-step restoration report that you can use when you need to restore a file, a library, or the entire system. Robot/SAVE also provides an online guided restoration procedure that tells you exactly the volumes you need to complete your restore. Robot/SAVE makes it easy for anyone with a little knowledge of IBM i to perform the restores (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Robot/SAVE's Guided System Restoration helps you restore your system.

For years, Robot/SAVE has been helping customers pass their hot site tests—and pass their audits. If you're tired of struggling in this area, give Robot/SAVE a free 30-day trial and see how easy IBM i backup and recovery can be. Learn more about Robot/SAVE by clicking here. Also, check out Help/Systems' other offerings in the MC Showcase Buyer's Guide.

Tom Huntington is Executive Vice President of Technical Solutions at HelpSystems, and has been with the company for nearly 30 years. He works with business alliances, acquisitions and large customer relationships and ensures that the HelpSystems software works with other major software and hardware vendors worldwide.

Tom often speaks on enterprise scheduling, security, automation topics, IBM i technology, and the HelpSystems products, and hosts technical presentations on a variety of automation topics. He is the author of the HelpSystems IBM i Marketplace Survey and has written articles on automated operations, security, cloud computing, and business intelligence for leading trade journals and newsletters. He was named an IBM Champion in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 for over three decades of advocation and thought leadership on the IBM i platform.

Contact Tom at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..