Informix Online Backup

[Sanjiv Sharma_1]

Hi,

I have HP9000 K580 Server with Informix 7.3 Database installed in it. It is the most critical Server working round the clock.

I would like to know which is the most effective method of Online backup for the Informix 7.3?

What should be the command to take backup and restore at the time of DB crash?

Thanks,
Raje.

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Raje,

you should use a commercial software like HP Omniback, which provide online backups for databases. You then would have to install the Informix Intrgration Agent on the computer running the application. After that, Omniback would be able to use snapshots of your databases to backup them.

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Rainer von Bongartz]

The most effective method of Online backup for the Informix 7.3 is to use the generic Informix onbar command for backup and restore.

In conjunction with the Informix Storage Manager (ISM) this will provide a high performant backup and restore solution.

The ISM is the Backup Manager from LEGATO Inc. with limited functionality. (You cannot store your backups on a remote Tape device )

So I would advice you to use onbar for the backup and LEGATO Backup software with the Informix Module (ISM with full functionality) as your storage manager.

Regards
Rainer

[Steve Lewis]

If its a small database (ie under 20Gb) and you have a fast tape drive like a DLT8000 or Ultrium and you have a quiet period somewhere in the 24 hour day, then you may be able to get away with using ontape. This and the other products allow hot-backups. The beauty of ontape is its simplicity.

The major backup managers like Legato, Veritas and Omniback are all difficult to configure and require a lot of man-hours and training to administrate properly.

We use ontape for small instances and onbar with Veritas Netbackup for larger instances.

You will need a test server identically configured to the production one to set it up and test backups and restores.

Make sure that you can perform restores on your production server before you rely on the backups because I have seen lots of problems over the years.

Don't believe all the manufacturers hype about their software, they all have pitfalls, bugs and exceptions to apparent functionality.
Caveat Emptor.