Re: Reducing downtime for backups

[barsa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Most users of SWA (Save While Active) do not use it properly.

You can write your own code to use it, but this is a pain.  Of the few that
do implement it properly, they typically report between 400 to 600 lines of
code to make it work.  It typically requires about one person month of
testing on a dedicated system.

There is a SWA tool in TAA Tools.  Using this typically requires about two
person days.  (You will need the 10/15/01 release of TAA to have this
function.)

Al

Al Barsa, Jr.
Barsa Consulting Group, LLC

400>390

914-251-1234
914-251-9406 fax

http://www.barsaconsulting.com
http://www.taatool.com






                    prumschlag@phdinc.c
                    om                        To:     midrange-l@midrange.com
                    Sent by:                  cc:
                    midrange-l-admin@mi       Subject:     Reducing downtime 
for backups
                    drange.com


                    11/30/01 10:00 AM
                    Please respond to
                    midrange-l








I am investigating options for reducing the length of time that the system
is
unavailable to users during our nightly backup job.  Not long ago we added
disks
and started creating *SAVF files in a separate ASP for the backups, copying
the
*SAVF's to tape later.  This reduced downtime to about 1 hour, but this
continues to grow as we add files and the existing files grow.  We are
doing
full SAVLIB's using BRMS and have split out all of the program and
non-essential
libraries into a separate job.  We backup 50 GB of data which compresses to
about 30 GB in the *SAVF format.  We are a single AS/400 shop running JD
Edwards.

At this point, the options I see are:
     Use SAVCHGOBJ.  We have done some tests on this and determined it will
not
     save us much.  A large percentage of the objects are changed everyday
and
     the system takes too long trying to figure out which objects to save.
     Separate "current" data from "prior year" data and store in different
     libraries.  We have already done some of this for the largest files.
This
     requires system changes because the users still need access to the
prior
     year data.
     Use the Save While Active Option.  I suspect that this is the best
solution
     and there is little (if any) out-of-pocket cost.  The downsides are a)
The
     time and risk associated with investigating and revising our current
     procedures, and b) Making sure that everyone here understands the
     implications of the new procedure.

I would be appreciative of other ideas anyone may have.

I have seen testimonials on this list that the newer tape drives are
extremely
fast (we have a 3570).  They couldn't possibly be faster that going to
*SAVF
files, could they?

TIA
Phil


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