HANA backup log files

[Former Member]

Had few questions on the HANA backup log files :

We have backup log files that are fairly old what I needed to understand the following:

1) Does the HANA administrator need to go and frequently clear the log and the data files? What checks and measures need to be performed

     to make sure?

2) If so how is done and how to identify the older backups that would be safe to delete?

3) Is there a script that can be scheduled in crontab to take care of this?

4) How is this scenario handled in other cases with other companies? example?

Thank you

[Former Member]

CORRECT answers.

[Former Member]

Thank you for answering the questions. Appreciate your help and prompt response.

[Former Member]

Thank you Malini please mark the response as CORRECT answer so it helps others with the same question

Sunil

[Former Member]

Hi Malini,

Please provide more information on your current backup/recovery strategy and the RTO/RPO to make sure the questions can be answered more accurately

Please note maintenance for Native file based HANA backups and BACKINT are not the same

Here are the answers to your questions:

1. Yes for Native File based HANA backups, in order to make sure you have space available for new backups. Backup Catalog contains a list of all log and data backups and it is necessary to keep the Backup catalog smaller to reduce the time taken for recovery. The retention of the number of entries in Backup Catalog depends on your current backup recovery policies. Typically customers opt to keep atleast 30-45 Days retention

2. Refer the sectio 4.2.8: Housekeeping for Backup Catalog and Backup Storage in the below Administration guide available on the link

http://help.sap.com/hana/sap_hana_administration_guide_en.pdf

3. Scripts can be scheduled using crontab and has to follow retention of backups on file system discussed in point 1

4. Depending on Native file based HANA backups or BACKINT solution used Customers have different maintenance strategies. For BACKINT solutions the backups are written to Backup appliance which may not need any deletion of older log and data backups(due to a retention of files on backup appliance) in such a case only Backup Catalog is supposed to be cleaned up

For native file based HANA backups both Catalog and disk level backups are cleaned up. Again all such cleanup can be done using HANA Studio BACKUP Administrator console, SQL commands

Hope this helps

Sunil