Summary : Informix OnLine backup alternative ?
Hi,
This is a brief summary for the "Informix OnLine backup alternative ?"
I posted last week. Thanks to all those nice people who shared their
knowledge and experience.
There are generally two alternative ways to backup Informix OnLine database:
1. Unload the data by using 'dbexport' or 'unload', then do a
backup for the unloaded data.
As suggested by Christoph Maethner (dbexport) and Dieter Becker
(unload), these methods provide flexibility to restore whole
database or selected tables.
Using dbexport requires an exclusive lock on the database, as
pointed by Christoph Adomeit, while using unload doesn't. A Force-Ckpt
might be needed to ensure the integrity.
Dieter Becker also provides a shell script to handle the unload process.
If you don't need incremental or online backup, these are good alternatives
for the tbtape.
2. Use 3rd party hardware/software to backup the raw partions.
Ann Barnes suggested that PCS Technologies(215-226-2220) has
hardware/software solution to back up all your files and raw partitions
on one unattended tape. Legato's Networker also has a "rawasm" module
to do the job, but is "unsupported" by Legato.
(or you can try dd if=rawdevice mentioned by Christoph Maethner)
It might be convenient to use if you can prevent users updating data
when you are doing the backup (e.g. bring it to quiescent mode, ...).
Incremental seems to be impossible for the raw partitions.
The other product Inteligenica (213-385-1600) (referred by Natalie Rosier,
nrosier@fllro.dhl.com) is really interesting. According to the information
sheet from the company DGC/4GL, it does partial and complete backup
(select which database and which tables to backup), and also provides
"row" level restore (single rows can be restored to a table).
Another nice feature is the cross platform restore which restores data
to multiple platforms. All this can be done while the system is online,
quiescent or off-line.
Walt Hultgren (walt@mathcs.emory.edu) told me that OnLine 6.0 is supposed
to contain a new and improved backup facility, which I believed will
have table/database archive capability. Hope we'll get a better "tbtape".
Richard Jen
MIS Sr. Programmer/DBA
Interphase Corp. TEL : (214) 919-9305
13800 Selac Drive FAX : (214) 919-9200
Dallas, TX 75234 ssjen@iphase.com