[acs] BACKING UP CMIS

[Redwinegirl]

Hi

 

Looking through the old comments, no-one seems to have asked recently whether CMIS can be automatically backed up. The IT Department back up the server, but have told me that CMIS still needs backing up from within the system daily. This is getting to be a pain so any help in automating this would be appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

K

[eddyc]

Unless things have changed since we left CMIS, it is possible to write a script to robocopy the .mdb file every night to a share and then create a folder with the date that the file was copied. As the share gets full, delete the oldest 5 / archive them off to an external drive and retain in the school safe.

 

If its now SQL driven, then things are much easier.

[pcstru]

What exactly do they mean "back up the server". You can set backups as a job on SQL server. We take a full backup of the database daily and incremental every few hours during the day. If you are doing that, you shouldn't need to use the CMIS backup feature.

[michael2k6]

Facility has been SQL driven for the last 8 years atleast. Certainly in the UK.

 

The server is probably backed up overnight and hopefully there's a SQL agent backing up the MDF and LDF too. Failing that, you can set backup jobs in SQL, and then cold copy the bak file as part of the server backup. What most people would do there is set a backup for each day in a fortnight or month, and set to overwrite rather than append.

That way, you get say 14 files, the oldest is 13 days old, and the 14th is the newest. You'll take up 14 times the size of the database, though as there's no compression by default.

 

The reason that you're told to still backup the database from within the software is because should you ring Advanced Learning support, they'll not be able to assist with restoring your server / SQL backups, as they won't know where they are, how they've been done, etc. If you give them a bdb backup, they can always get your data back from that backup.

 

However, consider what you're backing up. If you have a backup of all datasets somewhere, and that is backed up to tape or disk (whatever method the rest of the network uses), then each day you backup you only need to backup the templates and the current dataset. If you're not fussed about the activity log either, then check the 'do not include audit trail' box when performing the backup and it will help keep the size down.

 

That way, in the even of a catastrophe, you will have all the old datasets in one bdb file and your latest dataset in another, and your templates in another. Make sure if you ever need them to follow the correct restore procedure to do it in the right order.

 

There is no way to schedule an automatic backup by BDB (to automate the process of backing up within the software).

[tli]

SQL backups are essential for dealing with major disasters but bdb backups from Facility itself are more flexible when minor things go wrong.

 

For instance, if something happens during an assessment round, you can restore individual tables which means that you can roll back the assessment side without losing data from other areas such as attendance or behaviour.

[michael2k6]

^ what tli said.