Unix Backup and Recovery

Unique Database Requirements

The unique backup and recovery requirements of Informix, Oracle, and Sybase could generate an entire book for each product. What, then, is the purpose of these chapters? That’s simple—to break down, once and for all, the “Berlin Wall” that exists between DBAs and SAs. Until now, if you wanted to learn about how to back up Informix, you had to buy an Informix book. The same was true for Sybase and Oracle. One of the problems with these books is that they assume you are a DBA! The authors assume that you understand tablespaces and transaction logs and rollbacks. The result is that you get only half the story. This book, on the other hand, assumes only that you have read this chapter and Chapter 3 of this book.

Another problem with many backup books is that they provide “example” scripts to back up your database. These scripts are not to be used in actual production environments. Instead, they are examples of what your scripts should look like. Most of the scripts that you find in this book have been published previously and are being run by hundreds of companies around the world. They run on many different platforms and should run on yours with very little customization.^[62]

^[62] The lawyers, of course, would have me remind you that these programs come with no guarantee or warranty. They are distributed with the GNU public license, allowing you to use and distribute them as much as you want. But as with any public domain software, there is no guarantee ...