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CHAPTER 12 Database Administration
The Backup Professional database is fast and efficient. BP processes maintain the database automatically, keeping it clean, error-free, and compact. However, there may be times when you will need to manage the database in some manner. This section describes the common operations you may need to perform to deal with these events.

12.1 Weekly Update Procedure

When a tape is reused, backup information from the tape is marked for deletion. This occurs whenever a tape is relabeled. The data is not actually deleted at this point, just marked for deletion. At a specified interval, every Sunday at 12:01am by default, the database is updated and all data marked for deletion is actually removed from the database.

This procedure also optimizes and compacts the database to ensure you get the best performance. This optimization can increase system load significantly due to the intensive I/O operations commonly found with databases. For this reason, the weekly update should be performed at a time when it would minimize the impact on other users. By default, the optimization does not occur unless a 25% space savings can be achieved. This space savings threshold is adjustable using the CompactionRatio setting in the DataBase section of the initialization file.

If you find that the default schedule for the weekly update is not to your liking, you can change it. The Initialization file contains two settings in the DataBase section that specify when the weekly update is to occur. The LastUpdate setting specifies when the update was last performed. The UpdateDays setting specifies how many days after that the next update will occur. See "Modify Initialization Files" on page 88 for information on how to change these settings.

12.2 Post Schedule Processing

At the end of a schedule, all old data that was on a recycled tape is purged from the database. This includes all the old backups and files. This keeps the database in perfect harmony with the contents of the tapes. Any tapes that were manually re-labeled, recycled, or deleted are handled also at this time. If you are not using schedules, this work is handled as part of the weekly update.

12.3 Database Residing on an NFS Partition

It is not generally recommended to have the BP database residing on a NFS partition. This is because the database is highly I/O dependent and needs a fast local hard disk for maximum performance. Also since some versions of NFS (especially on slow servers) can cause time-outs, behavior can appear sporadic

Stand-alone dedicated NFS file servers on a high speed back bone (100 MB/sec or faster) are acceptable.

12.4 Database Is Too Large

If the database size grows to a point where it will fill its current filesystem, you will need to move it to another filesystem with more space or delete some of your oldest tapes. You may begin to see warnings in your backup history about the database filesystem reaching a ceiling. If so, you must move the database before future backups begin to fail.

12.4.1 Deleting Old Tapes

In order to make the database use less space, you will need to delete tapes from the database. You should start by deleting tapes that no longer physically exist, such as tapes that were destroyed or lost. This will not reclaim the space immediately. It will only mark the data for deletion. The weekly update will actually reclaim this space for the filesystem. See "Tape Contents History" on page 147 for directions on deleting tapes.

12.4.2 Moving The Database

First, determine a filesystem that can hold the current database and allow for future growth. On Unix systems, you can use the following commands:

du $BPDIR/db
df

The du command will display the number of blocks used by the database. The df command will list all filesystems from which you can use to determine where the database should be moved.

A script exists as $BPDIR/util/move_db.sh to move the database to another directory or filesystem. Once you have selected the new filesystem and directory to move the database, running the script will move the database to the directory that you specify. The script will automatically stop all BP processes before the move but you should make sure that you close your BP programs first.

12.5 Resetting the Database

At times, you might want to reset the database and start all over again. This is useful if you have been through a lengthy evaluation phase. You can reset the database which instantly removes all backups, tapes, and file information, yet preserves the clients, schedules, tape devices and other configuration settings. This is accomplished by running the script $BPDIR/util/reset_db.sh.

12.6 Database Utilities

This is a collection of database utilities and is accessible through the Administration utility menu [Misc->Database Utilities]. These functions perform low-level database management such as checking the integrity of the database and rebuilding tables.

These utilities are not intended for daily use. Normally, if a database problem exists, tasker will fix the problem by rebuilding the database if necessary. The database is checked whenever tasker starts. If you suspect a database problem, you should stop and start tasker. If the problem continues, it will be a matter for technical support, and they may have you perform operations from the database utilities.



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