Conference cookie::archive_backup

429.0. "ABS SR opens 'manual' Rdb DB - automatically ?" by ATZIS3::PIEBER (chaos has many faces) Wed Apr 16 1997 13:00

    Hi,
    
    just a short question regarding ORACLE/Rdb support of ABS. We use RMU
    to backup customer databases on the dedicated backup server. This
    works fine.
    
       Investigating a question unrelated to ABS we found out, that the
    database is not opened on this node AT ALL and it is of type MANUAL. 
    So, no automatic open is performed, when accessing the database, as far
    as RDB is concerned.
    
       We tracked this down and found out, that the DB-open happens on this 
    node, shortly after the SR starts. After the SR completes, the DB is 
    closed again.
    
    Questions: 
    
    - Who opens the DB ?
    - as we could not locate the commands in the templates - are these
      statements hardcoded ?
    - Is this the way it is supposed to work ?
      Not that I am saying that this is a problem, just to make it clear
      to the customer, that ABS takes care of this, even with DB MANUAL state.
    
    	The reason for the question is, that we expected the SR to fail,
    telling us 'Rdb DB not open and manual' or anything like this...
    
    	ABS V2.1
    	Rdb V6.x
    	VMS 6.2
    
    Ewald.

    
    All ABS does to backup RDB databases is to issue RMU backup command.
    What RMU command does internally (open DB or not, what so ever) is 
    beyond us. The command issued by ABS is in the tempalates:
    
    The clue to the RMU command issued is in template (if this is a
    database save)
    
    abs$templates:rmu_backup_61-2.full_archive_template
    
    for V6.1 rdb database. 
    
    The only thing ABS interprets from RMU during backup is how to handle
    error or informational messages.  See template
    
    abs$templates:rmu_backup_61-2.parse_template
    
    to see what kind of messages are parsed.  The severity of ABS handling
    of the particular message is in this template also. If the end of the 
    line says {severity=FATAL_ERROR}, it means this message causes ABS to
    go into fatal error handling code).  ABS process this template from
    top to bottom, so a epcific type of error is listed first and generic
    type of errors are listed later for catch-all.
    
    AS you can see, we have very limited interaction with RMU backup
    itself.  How the data is moved and what state the database will be 
    during backup depends on Oracle/rdb RMU backup.
    
    Masami