Backup, HA, and DR on an Unsupported Power8 System
Once a Power8 system is past IBM's end-of-support date, the calculus around backup and disaster recovery changes. IBM is no longer committed to supplying replacement parts on demand, which means an unrecoverable hardware failure becomes a real, not hypothetical, path to extended downtime. Backup and DR posture stops being a compliance checkbox and becomes the actual thing standing between a failure and a business-impacting outage.
What to verify first
Backup and DR checklist for unsupported Power8 systems
| Area | What to Confirm |
|---|---|
| IBM i save strategy | Full system saves (not just library-level saves) are current, and a save-and-restore has actually been tested, not just scheduled. |
| PowerHA / replication targets | Any HA or logical replication setup does not depend on a second unsupported Power8 system as its only failover target. |
| Offline backup copy | At least one verified backup path exists that does not assume the primary Power8 system will always be reachable to restore from. |
| Recovery time reality check | If a core component fails and TPM sourcing takes days rather than hours, does your DR plan actually cover that gap? |
Why this matters more for enterprise-tier models
If you are running an E850, E870, or E880, this is especially important: those systems typically consolidate multiple partitions and workloads onto shared hardware. A single unsupported hardware failure on a consolidation platform can take down every partition on the box at once, not just one workload.
None of this is a reason to panic ... it is a reason to verify, specifically, rather than assume. If your backup and DR posture genuinely holds up under these questions, a TPM-supported Power8 system can run safely for a defined bridge period. If it does not, that gap is worth closing before anything else on this site.