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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>At a prior employer where they wanted to insure
they minimized downtime in the event of a catastrophic failure we essentially
created a duplicate (standby) database from a cold backup of
PRODUCTION. We then had a process in place to copy the archive logs
(redo logs in filesystem) from PRODUCTION server to the Standby server and
simply had it apply those logs. We also backed up the logs on a
fairly frequent basis. Although we copied the logs right away we
built in a 6 hour delay in actually applying them to the Standby database so
that if there was some untoward event (e.g. someone deleted all the records from
PRODUCTION) we’d have time to prevent the logs from being applied to the
Standby. That was with an Oracle DB but some of the proprietary
products I’ve seen create logs as well so it could probably be done.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
ale-bounces@ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces@ale.org] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Richard Faulkner<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, April 13, 2010
12:09 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts -
Yes! We run Linux!<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [ale] Backup
frequency question</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Learning is a good thing
and researching alternative solutions costs only your time and minimal (if no)
cash. You are the consumer and should vote with your money. If
Sybase is not responding to valid needs of the consumer then it's your right in
this economy to vote with our money...correct? (Sorry that I'm stating
the obvious). I don't believe in a perfect world but I also don't believe
that your fears are unfounded.<br>
<br>
Personally I look for redundancy of hardware, redundancy of data and remote
off-site back-up for business critical systems. I'm not a database guru
but sounds like it's time to do some homework....<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>From</span></b>: William Fragakis <<a
href="mailto:William%20Fragakis%20%3cwilliam@fragakis.com%3e">william@fragakis.com</a>><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Reply-to</span></b>: <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place></st1:City> Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run
Linux! <ale@ale.org><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To</span></b>: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts -
Yes!We run Linux! <<a
href="mailto:Atlanta%20Linux%20Enthusiasts%20-%20Yes!We%20run%20Linux!%20%3cale@ale.org%3e">ale@ale.org</a>><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject</span></b>: [ale] Backup frequency
question<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Date</span></b>: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:21:03
-0400<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<pre><font size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Opinions requested from those wiser/smarter than me (which includes all<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>of you, your pets and probably your houseplants):<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>My wife's medical practice management software writes to a closed source<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>database*. Prior to Jan, the version of the database we used allowed for<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>"hot" backups - you could copy (we used rsync) the files to another<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>server while the database was in use. Thus, we could make hourly copies<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>as well as the usual nightly copy which was also sent off site. The<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>hourly copies were written to a duplicate machine so if the primary data<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>server failed in any catastrophic way, we'd have both the data and a<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>machine configured to serve it available quickly. Losing an hour's worth<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>of work seemed to be the level of risk we felt we could assume. We don't<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>feel comfortable losing a day's worth of work. Of course, the database<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>and the duplicate both use RAID 1, the primary server using Windows and<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>hardware (motherboard) RAID and the backup, Linux software RAID.<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>While the risk of losing both disks of a RAID are statistically low, I'm<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>freaky about both data preservation and availability.<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Since Jan., an update in the database version prevents us from making<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>live copies (we either have to kick off all the users or ignore file<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>locking, both not what you want for obvious reasons). We can still make<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>nightly backups but we are "naked" (at least it feels that way) for the<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>next 24 hours.<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Ideally, we'd just migrate to an open source solution but, invariably,<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>it's not that easy (or at least quick). <o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>In the meantime, am I being overly paranoid or should I be concerned? Of<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>course, the vendor is telling me that I'm worrying over something that<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>has a low probability and at this point has no plans to add a utility to<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>the management program to allow live copies - which they could do but<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>won't. I can't do it directly because they won't give us the level of<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>access to the database we need to do it ourselves. Thoughts?<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>TIA,<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>William<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>*Advantage Database ver. 8.1<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Ale mailing list<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><a
href="mailto:Ale@ale.org">Ale@ale.org</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><a
href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<o:p></o:p></span></font></pre><pre><font
size=2 face="Courier New"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><a
href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></pre>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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