Hard-Link Backup with admintools
One way you can perform a hard-link backup is to stop the cluster with admintools. If you backup the volumes when the database is down, you can restore them without requiring you to run the vbr backup and restore script. However, if you want to maintain multiple point-in-time backups, you can still use vbr.
Use this approach if your service-level agreements allow you to stop the database for a period of time long enough to initiate snapshots.