I would like to make online (at the same time the database will be accessed (reads or writes) by the application) backups on two systems with informix IDS 7.3 and informix 6.0.5.

What is the right procedure to do this?
The application documentation says that you have to stop the application first. But this is not possible since it is an ATM application.

P.S: In oracle you have to put the database in log archieve mode. Do you have to do something like this in Informix?

take a look at level 0 backup and backup of the logical logs.

ontape -s -L 0 to backup the data
and
ontape -c to backup logical logs


this way you dont have to stop the server.

Also take a look if you are using buffered ore unbuffered loging
unbuffered is the safest but also the slowest

Hello eugenec

I do have 4 Informix 7.31 databases.

We are doing all the time online backup using ONTAPE command from informix. That is backuping on tabe backup even when the database is online.( read/write )

I know there is ONARCHIVE and ONBAR to do that job too but I never used it so far.

Why should i backup the logical logs with the command: ontape -c?

This is problematic since i will need another tape so the backup can not be unattened (Automatic on 01:00 AM). Except if the ontape has an option that adds to the tape instead of overwritting the tape.

Hi,

You may want to backup the logical logs because it's there where you save the modifications to your data. If you need to use the backup you'll first restores the system backup (level 0, 1 and 2) and later you'll redo your transactions since the last backup tape using the logical logs. So if your system crashes, say at 17:00, and your last backup were done at 8:00, that's what you'll get if you're restoring just the system backup tapes; but if you apply your logical log tapes the system will roll forward the transactions between 8:00 and 17:00. Be sure to understand how this will be achieved in a test system before you need it in the real one!!!

Hope it helps