DB2 10.5 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows

Backup and restore operations between different operating systems and hardware platforms

DB2® database systems support some backup and restore operations between different operating systems and hardware platforms.

The supported platforms for DB2 backup and restore operations can be grouped into one of three families:

Big-endian Linux and UNIX
Little-endian Linux and UNIX
Windows

A database backup from one platform family can only be restored on any system within the same platform family. For Windows operating systems, you can restore a database that was created on DB2 Version 10.1 on a DB2 Version 10.5 database system. For Linux and UNIX operating systems, as long as the endianness (big endian or little endian) of the backup and restore platforms is the same, you can restore backups that were produced on down level versions.

The following table shows each of the Linux and UNIX platforms DB2 supports and indicates whether the platforms are big endian or little endian:

Table 1. Endianness of supported Linux and UNIX operating systems DB2 supports
Platform	Endianness
AIX®	big endian
HP on IA64	big endian
Solaris x64	little endian
Solaris SPARC	big endian
Linux on zSeries	big endian
Linux on IBM® Power Systems™	big endian
Linux on IA-64	little endian
Linux on AMD64 and Intel EM64T	little endian
32-bit Linux on x86	little endian

The target system must have the same (or later) version of the DB2 database product as the source system. You cannot restore a backup that was created on one version of the database product to a system that is running an earlier version of the database product. For example, you can restore a DB2 Version 10.1 on a DB2 Version 10.5 database system, but you cannot restore a DB2 Version 10.5 backup on a DB2 Version 10.1 database system.

Note: You can restore a database from a backup image that was taken on a 32-bit level into a 64-bit level, but not vice versa. The DB2 backup and restore utilities should be used to back up and restore your databases. Moving a file set from one machine to another is not recommended as this can compromise the integrity of the database.

In situations where certain backup and restore combinations are not allowed, you can move tables between DB2 databases using other methods:

The db2move command
The export command followed by the import or the load command

Note: Database configuration parameters are set to their defaults if the values in the backup are outside of the allowable range for the environment in which the database is being restored.