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We recommend that you rigorously test your backup plan before introducing it into a production environment. This section introduces some considerations during the testing phase.
To adequately test restoration of the NDS tree, you must create an autonomous NDS tree. It is not adequate to simply restore a tree to another server, as the target server is probably part of the same NDS tree as the source server. If you want to merge or reorganize your NDS tree, there are better tools available from Novell to achieve this. The goal should be testing the recovery mechanism for loss of the entire NDS tree. To do this properly, an autonomous NDS tree must be created.
The NDS relies on a synchronization process to ensure that all replicas hold identical information. After changes are made to the NDS, the synchronization may not be immediate. This may affect testing in some instances.
For example, there may be a situation where you are testing the restore of a single object. You delete the object from a replica and then restore it using Tivoli Storage Manager. The object still appears to exist to Tivoli Storage Manager, because the replicas have not synchronized.
Synchronization should not play a major part of your testing, but be aware of its existence and its ramifications.
You can verify the NDS tree after a restore operation by running a DSREPAIR operation against the NDS (either an unattended full repair or local DS repair). This operation will produce a log reporting any inconsistencies found in the NDS.
Trustee assignments to files and directories can be spot checked after a restore operation to verify their validity.