DB2 backup alternatives

[#1]

Hi Friends,

I´am very new in DB2. I would like to know some alternatives for the DB2 database backup.

Could be an option to make an offline backup of all the file systems related to db2 in order to restore consistently?

What could be the impact?

We can assume that DB2 is down.

Thanks in advance

Enrique Sánchez

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

As like other database, you should take offline, online and archive log backup regularly to maintain the consistency of your landscape. Offline backup depends upon whether system is production, quality etc. as during offline backup system will not be available so you can plan for every month or every 15 days..depends upon your business requirement.

Online backup and archive log backup should be scheduled daily.

E.g: if you have taken offline backup one month back and after that system crashed then you should restore with online backup and apply archive logs for point in time recovery.

Please check following book for backup on DB2:

[Db2 Admin Guide|http://maben.homeip.net/static/computers/sap/DB2/SAP%20on%20IBM%20DB2%20Universal%20database%20for%20UNIX%20and%20Windows%20Admin%20NW04.pdf]

Thanks

Sunny

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Sunny,

thanks for the answer, but the main focus of the question was: the posibility of backing up my DB2 database consistently, doing the back up of each of the file systems related with DB2 and not necessarily using the db2 commands.

In order to recovery I would restore these file systemes and start up the database.

Is it possible?

Best regards

Enrique.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

a poor's man strategy:

you will need to shutdown your database, then use any OS backup tool to backup database files.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I will always prefer to have database backup instead of file system backup.

Is there any specific reason you are looking for file system backup ?

Thanks

Sunny

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

The DB size is around of 2300 GB, at this time an Upgrade process is running in sandbox system and the Upgrade team ask for a consistent offline full bacup in the next phase.

The issue is that we have storage problems to triger the backup in just one location storage as it should be, so we have been considering the posibility to have a file system back up of database and therefore we could be available to distribute in several storage locations.

I think also that the better way is to do a DB backup, but for us may be it won´t be possible

Best regards

Enrique.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

why not backup on tapes? you can backup by splitting on multiple tapes.

[former_member184709 · Accepted solution]

If the database is on SAN disk you could have your SAN team take a snapshot of the disks while the database is down.

You could also do this online with DB2 split-mirror backups, however this takes orchestration between the SAN team, the DBA, and the OS teams, so you need to do comprehensive testing to make sure that the process works.

You could then have the SAN team mount up the snapshot in the other locations if you need copies of them.

I would always have some kind of database backup available in some location, regardless if you use a filesystem backup

You could also mount up an NFS filesystem and back the database up to a remote server that has enough space to hold the backup.