Introducing Arcserve Backup Agents and Options › Using Agents › Agent for Informix › Using the Agent for IBM Informix › Recommendations for Backing Up IDS Database

Recommendations for Backing Up IDS Database

When you submit a job from the Backup Manager, Arcserve Backup validates the jobs in the queue. The agent then converts the job requests to ON-Bar commands, which appear in the Activity Log for this agent.

To ensure a complete restore operation based on your organization’s defined backup schedule, we recommend the following:

• Periodically stop IDS services and perform a full offline backup (regular file backup) of the IDS configuration and data files, without the agent. This ensures that restores will be successful if dbspaces or blobspaces are lost. Before starting the backup job, stop all IDS services using the Services feature of the Control Panel.
• Back up dbspaces or blobspaces immediately after you create them, and maintain a regular backup schedule to ensure smooth recovery in case of dbspace or media failure. Arcserve Backup lets you set and maintain a regular schedule of automatic backups.
• IDS reuses logical logs. To conserve disk space, IDS limits log size and quantity. When these logs are full, you must back them up to free them for reuse.
• Before submitting jobs using the Backup Manager, ensure that the following Arcserve Backup services are running:
  • Job Engine
  • Tape Engine
  • Database Engine