Unix Backup and Recovery

Physical Backups with a Storage Manager: onbar

ontape is a program that has been around for years, and its greatest single feature is simplicity. It does have limitations, though, that were addressed with the release of onbar. onbar has the following features that ontape does not have:

XBSA interface

The XBSA interface is what separates onbar from ontape or onarchive. This interface is designed specifically for use with third-party storage management (TPSM) applications, such as those discussed in Chapter 5. XBSA allows you to use onbar to back up Informix data directly to the TPSM’s tapes. Whereas ontape requires you to keep track of all the archive tapes, onbar and the TPSM will do that for you. When you need to restore a database, you simply tell onbar to do so; onbar and the TPSM figure out which tapes they need. If you have a jukebox, they even automatically put the necessary tapes in the drives.

Restartable restore

This is a new feature in Informix 7.3. With earlier versions, if you are restoring a large database and the restore fails at 90 percent complete, you have to redo the entire restore. The restartable restore feature allows the restore to pick up where it left off.

Restore of online storage spaces

“Storage space” is a new term in Informix documentation that refers to any storage element, such as a dbspace, a blobspace, or a chunk. (It used to be necessary to take a storage space offline prior to restoring it.)

External backup and restore

External backup and restore ...