Unix Backup and Recovery

Physical Backups with a Storage Manager

Many commercial backup utilities, like those covered in Chapter 5, actually can have a completely integrated backup solution for all Sybase databases. They will have an interface that communicates directly with Sybase’s backup server. This interface provides additional functionality by having some way of creating, scheduling, and executing the backups via a graphical user interface (GUI). This lets the backups and restores be run by just a few clicks with a mouse.

Sometimes, these utilities are on the same system as the data server; at other times, only a client part of the application will be on the data server system, and a separate backup application will be on a networked system. No matter how it is set up, these applications will provide an easier and reliable backup solution.

In addition to providing support for physical backups, these utilities described in Chapter 5 also can provide support for logical backups. They add additional functionality to bcp, such as easy scheduling, a GUI frontend, and allowing the logical backups to be stored on remote backup devices. (The bcp utility is covered in Section 16.5, later in this chapter.)

Because of the strong integration with Sybase’s backup system, sometimes the only change seen on the Sybase side might be to the destination or source device used. This allows easy merging of the new product with existing backup procedures. For example, where the physical tape device had been /dev/nrmt0 in ...