Full backup example

The Database Administrator of Company X's development department performs a full backup of the devel.db every Friday, and incremental backups on other weekdays. Both full and incremental backups are done on disk and on a single disk file. The database is on a Windows system.

When choosing the parameters, consider that the backup takes significantly longer when you use the -com or -red parameters. If you use the -red parameter, the backup also uses more backup media.

The following procedure outlines how to perform an full online or offline backup of the devel.db database. To perform an online backup, skip Step 2 through Step 4 of the procedure.

Use the procedure that follows to perform a full backup of the devel.db database:

  1. Prepare the backup media according to the operating system documentation.
  2. Verify that the database is not in use.

    Use the following command to verify that the database is not in use:

     proutil devel -C BUSY
  3. Shut down devel.db.

    Enter the following command:

    proshut devel
  4. Run PROBKUP -estimate to determine how much media is necessary for the backup, since this is the first time you are making a backup of the database.

    Use the following command

    probkup devel a:\devback -com -red 5 -scan -estimate

    The following message tells you about the state of your system, and how much media is necessary for backup:

    devel requires a total of 338 blocks of full backup media.
devel requires a total of 3 blocks of incremental backup media.
devel requires a total of 14 blocks of incremental backup media 
     with one overlap.
Total number of allocated blocks = 336
Total number of allocated blocks that are free: 2
Total number of allocated blocks that are used: 334
  5. Perform a full offline database backup.

    • Enter the following command to perform a full database backup:

      probkup devel a:\devback -vs 708 -verbose -com -red 5 -scan

    • Enter the following command to perform a full online database backup:

      probkup online devel a:\devback -verbose -com -red 5
      Note: You cannot use the -scan parameter for online backups.

    The following parameters are utilized in the preceding commands:

    devel
    Identifies the name of the database you are backing up.
    online
    Specifies that the backup is an online backup.
    a:\devback
    Specifies the output destination is a file, \devback, on the a: drive.
    -verbose
    Tells PROBKUP to display information at 10-second intervals during the backup.
    -com

    Indicates that the data should be compressed before it is written to the disk drive. If you specify the -com parameter and do not use -scan, PROBKUP displays the number of blocks and the amount of backup required for an uncompressed database.

    -red 5

    Creates one error-correction block for every five blocks that are backed up.

    -scan

    Allows the backup utility to scan the database before backing it up to determine the number of blocks to be backed up.

    As the full offline backup of devel.db runs, the following report appears:

    64 bi blocks will be dumped.
336 out of 336 blocks in devel will be dumped.
This will require 369664 bytes of backup media.
This backup will require a minimum of 400 blocks to restore. 
1 volume will be required.
Backed up 400 blocks in 00:00:04.
Wrote a total of 12 backup blocks using 369664 bytes of media.
Backup complete.

    As the full online backup of devel.db runs, the following report appears:

    64 bi blocks will be dumped.
336 out of 336 blocks in devel will be dumped.
This will require 369664 bytes of backup media.
This backup will require a minimum of 400 blocks to restore. 
Backed up 400 blocks in 00:00:04.
Wrote a total of 12 backup blocks using 369664 bytes of media.
Backup complete.

    The number of backup blocks is the number of -bf units written to the tape. Backup blocks contain data, primary recovery (BI), and error-correction blocks.

    This example backs up a very small database. Using the -red parameter on a larger database increases the amount of time and backup media required for the backup.

  6. If you have after-imaging enabled, back up the AI files onto a separate disk using a separate operating system backup utility.