How to determine who performed the last full database dump before cumulative dump

[Former Member]

Hello,

ASE 15.7 SP100 allows cumulative backups, and if cumulative dump is tried before a full dump, ASE shows this error:

You cannot execute an incremental dump before a full database dump.

From my experiments, it seems that it does not matter how the full dump is performed (by native isql, or by a 3rd party API). As long as a full dump is done on a database, ASE seems to be keeping track of all the changed pages since the last full dump. So this means that you can perform a full dump using a 3rd party API, and then on isql, if you run a cumulative dump command, the cumulative dump succeeds, which is based on the last full dump by another library!

So, my question is: is there any way to programmatically determine how (by native isql or 3rd party) the last full backup was performed? I believe $SYBASE_HOME/ASE-15_0/dumphist contains this info, but it requires 'enable dump history' to be set first, and I am looking for a solution which does not involve checking a disk file.

Thanks,

Ali

[tilman_model-bosch]

Dear Mr Razib,

I have not explored the feature but ASE autiding might provide you the possibility to access information on past database dumps via SQL.

Apart from that - I am not aware of an SQL interface to the dumphist file (would be nice to have, I agree)

Enabling dump history is definitley highly recommended  (in my opinion) .

There is yet another feature which might help you to prevent an DBA from dumping databases and transactions to various locations.
When you create a DUMP CONFIGURATION and additionally set parameter

        enforce dump configuration

ASE will prevent normal (free style) DUMP commands but enforce the use of an existing dump configuration. The mechanism is not fool proof (nothing prevents from creating yet another dump configuration on the fly) - but at least something.

With kind regards

Tilman Model-Bosch

[Former Member]

OK thanks Tilman!