topic Corrupt files on BC in Disk Enclosures

Corrupt files on BC

Eric van der Horst — Mon, 22 Jul 2002 10:04:30 GMT

Hi all,

we have a customer with 2 XP512 disk array's. On 1 of the 2 they are making BC's. We use these BC's for backup. Sometimes we see that the backup software could not backup all the files. When I browse to the file or directory and try to open the file or directory, I get the message that the file or directory is corrupt. What can cause the file or directory to be corrupt? Can a user, who is logged on, and locks a file by opening it, cause these problems? In other words, is it necessary that all the users needs to be logged off, during creating the BC?

Hope somebody can help me.

Thanks in advance.

best Regards, Eric van der Horst

Re: Corrupt files on BC

Martin Johnson — Mon, 22 Jul 2002 15:08:16 GMT

Generally, all users need to be logged off.

Some database products have intelligence enough to take a valid snapshot of the data when a quiet point is reached. In this case, you would not have to log everyone off.

Some backup products will automatically skip open files to insure valid backups. If you need everything, then you must have all users logged off.

HTH
Marty

Re: Corrupt files on BC

Peter Mattei — Tue, 23 Jul 2002 06:14:10 GMT

Eric

You have to make sure, that at the time you split the BC all data is consistent. In databases like Oracle you put them into online backup mode, which virtually closes the DB and caches all updates until you go back to normal mode.
With filesystems you have to make sure that nobody has exclusively locked them. One way is to take the affected volume or filesystem offline, split the BC and put it back online. If this is not possible you have to quiesce the system before you split the BC in order to insure consistent data.
Another option is to backup constantly open files by using ordinary online backup with the use of the open file feature of the backup software.
Regards
Peter