RE: Ontape restore to another server

Don't think that's different than other DB products. Use the right tool (dbexport/import like Keith said), and it'll work fine. Norma Jean Sebastian ERP Support Administration IT - Enterprise Technical Services -----Original Message----- From: informix-list-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:informix-list-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Gary Quiring Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 9:33 AM To: informix-list@iiug.org Subject: Re: Ontape restore to another server Keith Simmons wrote: > Forget it, there is no way this will even begin to work! > dbexport/dbimport is your only option between different O/S. > WOW! Data is not compatible between OS's? Why would Informix be so inflexible about the data between hardware platforms? _______________________________________________ Informix-list mailing list Informix-list@iiug.org http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list ============================================================ The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any reproduction, dissemination or distribution of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you. Tellabs ============================================================

Sebastian, Norma J. wrote: > Don't think that's different than other DB products. > > Use the right tool (dbexport/import like Keith said), and it'll work > fine. My current backup is in ontape format. The only place to get that data is on that tape. I don't have another Sun box to restore the data to. Looking forward I don't see using dbexport as a practical backup solution for a 150gig DB. Other DB products may be alike but that does not excuse the issue. I think it's silly they can't make backup data compatible between hardware platforms.

> Gary Quiring" <gquiring@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:1167321464.829506.325740@n51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... > Sebastian, Norma J. wrote: >> Don't think that's different than other DB products. >> >> Use the right tool (dbexport/import like Keith said), and it'll work >> fine. > My current backup is in ontape format. The only place to get that data > is on that tape. I don't have another Sun box to restore the data to. > Looking forward I don't see using dbexport as a practical backup > solution for a 150gig DB. Other DB products may be alike but that does > not excuse the issue. I think it's silly they can't make backup data > compatible between hardware platforms. You may think it's silly but that's the way it is. As Keith says it won't work in a million years, and as Norma says it's the same for other dbs. That's why Informix, and Oracle, release multiple sets of software for each release - one for each OS. Not sure about DB2 though - doesn't it have a commopn code base, Obnoxio?

Gary Quiring wrote: > Looking forward I don't see using dbexport as a practical backup > solution for a 150gig DB. Other DB products may be alike but that does > not excuse the issue. I think it's silly they can't make backup data > compatible between hardware platforms. The main problem with dbexport is that it exclusively locks the database while the export occurs. You could use myexport which is a tool available from the IIUG which can do dirty reads on the database. I am not sure that you can be guaranteed a 'backup' that represents an accurate snapshot of a point in time with this, but it is useful for many purposes including your purpose. The only reason 150Gb is impractical I guess is because you don't have the disc space. Otherwise I believe that on 9.X+ there aren't limits on the file size export routines can create. A cheap solution for some people is to use a USB hard disc instead of a tape but I'm no Sun hardware expert so don't know if this is an option for you. This is all looking forward of course. Your current 'ontape' backup needs a box similar (OS, IDS version, disc layout) to the one you have to be useful. I can't speak for why ontape archives cannot be made to be portable between OSes; it would seem to be a reasonable request. (We would like to see ontape compatibility between 10.00.UC5 and 10.00.FC5 on the same hardware.) Ben.

"Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message news:en0qt8$m83$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk... > Gary Quiring wrote: > > (We would like to see ontape compatibility between 10.00.UC5 and > 10.00.FC5 on the same hardware.) Is there none? We rely on binary compatibiliy between UC (actually HC) and FC versions at one customer site, for MIS reporting. More recently I saw a warning message, on one of the earlier v10 releases, about an incompatibility between the archive version and the oninit binary, but it could be ignored and the restore still worked. Have things changed?

On 28 Dec 2006 07:57:44 -0800, Gary Quiring <gquiring@gmail.com> wrote: > Sebastian, Norma J. wrote: > > Don't think that's different than other DB products. > > > > Use the right tool (dbexport/import like Keith said), and it'll work > > fine. > My current backup is in ontape format. The only place to get that data > is on that tape. I don't have another Sun box to restore the data to. > Looking forward I don't see using dbexport as a practical backup > solution for a 150gig DB. Other DB products may be alike but that does > not excuse the issue. I think it's silly they can't make backup data > compatible between hardware platforms. > > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list > Gary You were not asking for an archive/backup solution, only data transfer. Horses for courses. Ontape is designed to archive data and then restore it to the same or similar server. The two servers you have probably have different page sizes (2K for Sol, 4K for Linux) possibly different endedness (big or little), different procesors (Sparc and Intel). Text files wold probably ftp between them OK but ontape stores the data in binary page images (for speed of archive and restore). I would have thought cpio or tar wold not work between these servers either, and they would only be transfering 'data'. Do you have enough space on your Solaris box to create another instance and then restore to this (using chunk renaming) just to extract the table you need. ou could investigate table level restores as well, although I can't remember off the top of my head whether this is available at v9.4. Keith

Neil Truby wrote: > "Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message > news:en0qt8$m83$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk... >> (We would like to see ontape compatibility between 10.00.UC5 and >> 10.00.FC5 on the same hardware.) > > Is there none? > We rely on binary compatibiliy between UC (actually HC) and FC versions at > one customer site, for MIS reporting. > More recently I saw a warning message, on one of the earlier v10 releases, > about an incompatibility between the archive version and the oninit binary, > but it could be ignored and the restore still worked. > Have things changed? I would need to check again. I have been led to believe it doesn't work. Ben.

> Do you have enough space on your Solaris box to create another > instance and then restore to this (using chunk renaming) just to > extract the table you need. > ou could investigate table level restores as well, although I can't > remember off the top of my head whether this is available at v9.4. > I don't have the space on that Sun box to extract. It's not an emergency situtation. I felt it would be a good excerise to learn for something down the road that could be more critical. It still blows me away that the data is hardware dependent. I never used ontape to move a DB so it was never was an issue in the past. I always used Art's dbcopy to migrate data. There was assumption on my part (my bad) that the data could be restored on a low end PC running Linux. My next step will be to create a job to do some daily exports of critical tables for any future issues. Thanks Gary

Gary Quiring wrote: > Sebastian, Norma J. wrote: >> Don't think that's different than other DB products. >> >> Use the right tool (dbexport/import like Keith said), and it'll work >> fine. > My current backup is in ontape format. The only place to get that data > is on that tape. I don't have another Sun box to restore the data to. > Looking forward I don't see using dbexport as a practical backup > solution for a 150gig DB. Other DB products may be alike but that does > not excuse the issue. I think it's silly they can't make backup data > compatible between hardware platforms. > Ontape is a page image format. The page header would not be compatable between the two chips.

Yes try it. I think you may find it works. -- Neil Truby t:01932 724027 Director m:07798 811708 Ardenta Limited e:neil.truby@ardenta.com "Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message news:en0sc7$m8u$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk... > Neil Truby wrote: >> "Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message >> news:en0qt8$m83$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk... >>> (We would like to see ontape compatibility between 10.00.UC5 and >>> 10.00.FC5 on the same hardware.) >> >> Is there none? >> We rely on binary compatibiliy between UC (actually HC) and FC versions >> at one customer site, for MIS reporting. >> More recently I saw a warning message, on one of the earlier v10 >> releases, about an incompatibility between the archive version and the >> oninit binary, but it could be ignored and the restore still worked. >> Have things changed? > > I would need to check again. I have been led to believe it doesn't work. > > Ben.