Learn about archiving and restoring Informix database servers.
Database server archiving and restoration overview
Archiving and restoring the server is the most complex—and
the most difficult—way to back up and restore databases. Therefore,
avoid using the server archive and restore commands unless you are
familiar with database logging techniques and neither of the methods
discussed previously is practicable in your environment. Because the
administrative complexities of this backup method are considerable,
it might be more cost effective for you to invest in hardware solutions
for high availability, such as disk mirrors or other RAID capabilities,
and to use one of the other backup methods to protect against complete
system failure and satisfy other backup requirements.
Incremental backups
You can arrange for incremental backups by running ccmsrv archive at regular intervals. You can augment these incremental backups with logical log backups.
Archive schedule
Plan on performing some level of archiving daily. Under extreme circumstances, you might even want to perform archiving more than once a day. For example, you might want to archive files three times a day before a major release or during a major bug fix phase.
Archive media
You must have archive tapes to restore the online server. To restore, use your archive plan to determine what tapes you need.
Archiving the database server
Use the ccmsrv archive command to archive
your database server. Ensure that users working outside of Rational Synergy are working
in their work areas. Before you archive the database server, ask users
to sync (reconcile) their work areas with the database. See the Rational Synergy Help for instructions
on how to sync.
Database server restoration
When you restore a database server, you go back to the
server and its database previous states when the last archive was
performed.
System configuration
System configuration includes disk path, chunk file size, shared memory capacity, and so on. The system configuration must be identical to or larger than the time the last Level 0 archive was created.
Configuration file
The configuration file, CCM_HOME\informix\etc\onconfig, must be identical to the configuration file used to perform the Level 0 archive.
Restoring database servers from archive for Windows
If you archived to tape, insert the most recent level 0
tape before you run the ccmsrv restore command. If
you used a directory as the archive device, you must perform some
manual steps to simulate an archive device.
Restoring database servers for Informix
Before you can restore a database server, ensure that the
system configuration, the relevant database server parameter file,
and, most importantly, the archive source are
correct.