MaxDB backup - no archivelog management

[Former Member]

Dear all,

We are running our SAP system on a MaxDB 7.7. database.

Due to various reason, we are not going to use MaxDB database tools to backup our SAP systems.

We only want to use VM Tools.

IMPORTANT : We do not want to manage the archive log backup.

Actually, we have the following backup process :

1. Every day, at 22:00, we stop our SAP System and our MaxDB database.

The savepoint is updated at each "successfull stopsap".

2. We start a full VM backup.

3. Then, we restart our MaxDB and our SAP system.

The status of our database is the following :

LOG_MODE = Single

Overwrite MODE = Overwrite

Redo Log Management = DEACTIVATED

Question :

1. If the database is stopped properly every night, do we risk any data loss ?

2. As the customer accept to loose one day off data (from one VM backup to the other one),

and as he does not want to manage (backup) Redo Log Data, is there a way to avoid stopping its

SAP system and MaxDB database every day to avoid data loss ?

Thanks for your answers

SAP NetWeaverAdmin

[former_member188883 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

 Question :
1. If the database is stopped properly every night, do we risk any data loss ?

There won't be any dataloss if , database is stopped gracefully.

(quote}

2. As the customer accept to loose one day off data (from one VM backup to the other one),

and as he does not want to manage (backup) Redo Log Data, is there a way to avoid stopping its

SAP system and MaxDB database every day to avoid data loss ?

Since your customer does not want to manage redo log data, there is a potential risk of data loss. Point in time recovery won't be possible with the scenario explained by you.

In order to take VM backup or VMclone you may need to shutdown your application and database. You may look into options of online VM cloning to avoid such shutdowns.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Deepak Kori

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Dear all,

Thanks.

Is it true that for a MaxDB database, you can activate the redo log management without generating archive logs files ?

Could be a stupid question, but someone has informed one of our customer that, to avoid taking place on hard disk,

you can activate the redo log management without generating archive files. Only possilbe on MaxDB, not on Oracle.

Best regards

SAP NetWeaverAdmin

[Former Member]

Hi,

You won't have any data loss if the DB is stopped and started in a consistent state.

However, by having archive log backup being disabled, you stand to loose all the data in case of system crash and the recovery will only be possible till the end of last successful DB backup that you will have.

Assuming a production system, you should ideally have an online backup configured, requiring no downtime.

You should consider defining a backup strategy to have Online DB backup on a daily basis and also have redo log backups enabled - atleast for the Productive systems.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Varun