RE: Informix Archives with BCV

Tim, We are currently on 9.40.FC8X3 running on Solaris 9 using Netbackup direct to tape (VxVM is also used) and are looking to implement a more robust (& quicker) backup solution and one of the proposals is to use BCV Regards Colin There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't Subject: RE: Informix Archives with BCVDate: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:34:28 -0500From: timothy.a.brown@emerson.comTo: cjd_1955@hotmail.comCC: informix-list@iiug.org Hi Colin, As you know, using onbar with BCV is pretty much mandatory if you want to recovery logs. Yes. I have first hand experience and the restore worked (with and without logs). Originally, I used ISM (bundled with Informix) to backup the logs to a directory. It is easy to blow away the ISM catalog directory and then use ISM to rescan the log directory to rebuild the catalog. ISM is very convenient. My testing included destroying the database (with and without salvaging logs). I have experience with BCV’s and Clones, and offloading the raw devices (3rd mirror) to a separate server for parallel streaming to LTO tape drives. 1.75 TB split into 3 streams takes approx 2.5 hours to backup to LTO2 drives. For Disaster Recovery, I use hard-links to the raw devices, since the device filenames can change. Since I use LVM on the source system (main database), this requires periodic backups (vgcfgbackup’s and vgexport’s) of the volume group header information. For the last couple years, I’ve been using Veritas with its “SAN Media server” software for direct tape drive access from a remote system. But really, most Storage Manager’s accomplish the same task. That is to say, backup log files and keep catalog information for recovery. What Storage Manager are you using with onbar? Cheers! Tim From: informix-list-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:informix-list-bounces@iiug.org] On Behalf Of Colin DawsonSent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 7:09 AMTo: informix-list@iiug.orgSubject: Informix Archives with BCV Does anyone have any 1st hand experience of using OnBar in conjunction with BCV. Have you run a restore? Did it work OK? Regards Colin There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't Get fish-slapping on Messenger! Play NowThis e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above. As this e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information, if you are not the named addressee, you are not authorized to retain, read, copy or disseminate this message or any part of it. _________________________________________________________________ The John Lewis Clearance - save up to 50% with FREE delivery http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719806/direct/01/

When you say BCV the assumption is you referring to EMC's Symmetrix BCV volumes? As Timothy mentioned it does make exact duplicates of the disk, and can present problems only if the BCV disks are presented back to the source machine. We BCV out our data and present the volumes to another machine for tape backup, however, you _can_ present back to the source machine if you change the UUIDs of the BCV drives before trying to mount them on the same machine. You use tunefs for this on Linux. It requires unmounting the src volumes, then running tunefs on each BCV mount, so it's not a good choice for databases that can't have downtime. This is only an issue if the BCVs are to be presented back to the same machine as the src volumes, so you don't need to do this if the BCVs are to be mounted elsewhere. In production you would establish the sync, put the database into a holding pattern ( In Oracle we put the database in hot-backup-mode ) then split the mirror, then take the database out of hot-backup-mode and return the system back to use. The split takes a few seconds on our 3+TB databases. Informix has an onmode option, it escapes me at the moment what it is to freeze the db for the split. I believe on Oracle users are not even aware that we're doing this, I'm not sure anymore how it works on Informix. -ID- Colin Dawson wrote: > Tim, > > We are currently on 9.40.FC8X3 running on Solaris 9 using Netbackup > direct to tape (VxVM is also used) and are looking to implement a more > robust (& quicker) backup solution and one of the proposals is to use BCV > > > > > > Regards > > Colin > > > There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary > and those that don't > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: RE: Informix Archives with BCV > Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:34:28 -0500 > From: timothy.a.brown@emerson.com > To: cjd_1955@hotmail.com > CC: informix-list@iiug.org > > > Hi Colin, > > > > As you know, using onbar with BCV is pretty much mandatory if you want > to recovery logs. Yes. I have first hand experience and the restore > worked (with and without logs). Originally, I used ISM (bundled with > Informix) to backup the logs to a directory. It is easy to blow away > the ISM catalog directory and then use ISM to rescan the log directory > to rebuild the catalog. ISM is very convenient. My testing included > destroying the database (with and without salvaging logs). > > > > I have experience with BCV's and Clones, and offloading the raw devices > (3^rd mirror) to a separate server for parallel streaming to LTO tape > drives. 1.75 TB split into 3 streams takes approx 2.5 hours to backup > to LTO2 drives. For Disaster Recovery, I use hard-links to the raw > devices, since the device filenames can change. Since I use LVM on the > source system (main database), this requires periodic backups > (vgcfgbackup's and vgexport's) of the volume group header information. > > > > For the last couple years, I've been using Veritas with its 'SAN Media > server' software for direct tape drive access from a remote system. But > really, most Storage Manager's accomplish the same task. That is to > say, backup log files and keep catalog information for recovery. > > > > What Storage Manager are you using with onbar? > > > > Cheers! > > Tim > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > *From:* informix-list-bounces@iiug.org > [mailto:informix-list-bounces@iiug.org] *On Behalf Of *Colin Dawson > *Sent:* Thursday, July 10, 2008 7:09 AM > *To:* informix-list@iiug.org > *Subject:* Informix Archives with BCV > > > > Does anyone have any 1st hand experience of using OnBar in conjunction > with BCV. Have you run a restore? Did it work OK? > > > > > Regards > > Colin > > > There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary > and those that don't > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Get fish-slapping on Messenger! Play Now > <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719805/direct/01/>; > > This e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above. > As this e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information, > if you are not the named addressee, you are not authorized to > retain, read, copy or disseminate this message or any part of it. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Win '3000 to spend on whatever you want at Uni! Click here to WIN! > <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/101719803/direct/01/>;