Snuffkins Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Sorry i was just being a litte sarcastic, i didn't really think he'd be manually backing up. Which would mean that he hasn't been backing up at all. If the data got corrupt and capita couldn't work their magic on it, you'd be going back to autumn when he did his last update and it ran the sql backup as part of the process. Which to me sounds quite catastrophic.
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 Which to me sounds quite catastrophic. omg, me too... That said, there is one backup in the backup list after a patch, that was from December (would that have been a full backup though?). The rest, I "tidied" away earlier at the suggestion of Capita. I really hope that this backup can sort out this ldf file.. (on the subject of backups, when I arrived here, the school system backup policy was for him to put it in when he remembered. I organised and setup Veritas with a daily & monthly backup schedule and reminded him of this. When I've been away, despite telling him what tapes to use, I get back to cancelled backups and the tape drive empty...)
Guest Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 I suspect it's got this big because the NM doesn't understand SIMS. Neither of us have been on any courses, etc.. and you only have to ask SYSMAN_MK as to how the current NM struggled when he took over in the school (SYSMAN_MK used to be the NM here until a couple of years ago). Oh the stories I have. I have never met anyone who can leave such a lasting impression.
Snuffkins Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 That said, there is one backup in the backup list after a patch, that was from December (would that have been a full backup though?). The rest, I "tidied" away earlier at the suggestion of Capita. It would have been a full backup, any time you update sims.net with solus it carrys out the backup, if it didn't you wouldn't have one at all by the sounds of it. Maybe he thinks it magically backs up when he's not looking. Either that or he thinks because your doing everything else for him you might be doing that too, which now you are . You should stop doing everything for him and see what happens...
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 Oh I will stop... when I'm in my notice period :-D Well, tonight is the telling time I guess. I take it that I can run the backup tonight and, er, run?! ;-) (do I have to supervise it?) Are they lengthy? SYSMAN... you should tell all...... some I know, but I hope there's more that I don't ;-)
Snuffkins Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Well mine normally take 5-10 minutes, but i don't have a 110gb ldf, so i'm not sure how long it will take. I would get everyone out a little early and make sure it goes through ok.
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 OK, I've also just been reading (in anticipation of problems) paulsharpe's thread on backup problems here. Dare I try the shrinkdblog.bat file first??
NetworkGeezer Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 OK, I've also just been reading (in anticipation of problems) paulsharpe's thread on backup problems here. Dare I try the shrinkdblog.bat file first?? I can't find any documentation on it other the quoted KB number. Perhaps it's time to call Capita again as you have narrowed down the problem quite a lot. Try to sound like your in floods of tears and they may hand you to someone who knows what they're doing .
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Judging from this you do understand that the backup that it makes during upgrades isn't a complete copy? And if you don't have a decent copy of the database its completely useless? I've had to install SIMS .Net from scratch and get data back on more than one occasion not a pretty sight especially if you've had to send the data to Capita because its messed up from the old sims server! Indiegirl I think you should tell the head what he's been doing...sorry hasn't been doing and why this would constitute a sackable offense or at least a demotion he's not capable of running the network and certainly not capable of doing the job ask the head how they would feel if they lost 12 months of sims data due to incompetence on the part of the your current muppet NM! Fozzy Bear is alive and well and holidaying in india! Wes
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 *bangs head on desk repeatedly* This is really serious, isn't it? I mean, I might joke and laugh about this, but no proper full backups, and no upgrades... I feel like I'm toeing an extremely fine line here with this, am now currently praying that it won't fall over and die and we lose data... Right, I have my plan in place (I'm a girl who likes to plan): 3pm - run SIMS backup through sys manager - redirect output to a.n.other drive. Ensure that backup completes successfully. If not, ring Capita and stress. 8am - log into Sims, SQL server, etc - check that darn ldf file - call Capita if it's still problematic. Then, meet line manager for debriefing and stress the situation. Poss knock up an incident report and email it to SMT if I deem that suitable. This has been a rather interesting day... rather like having someone unravel a very large ball of wool, then drop it and leave me to pick it all up.
NetworkGeezer Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Judging from this you do understand that the backup that it makes during upgrades isn't a complete copy? And if you don't have a decent copy of the database its completely useless? Wha...?! I do understand that the backup is a live backup of the SIMS DB and not the whole SQL Server RDBMS (there's tape backup for that). If you're saying that the backup of the DB itself is only partial then that would be useless for disaster recovery. How would you then be able to regenerate all the data?
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 From what I gather you would need to reinstall the SIMS system (About 30 minutes if your good ) then you would need to recover the database from the tape backup then you would run the quick backup (System->Tools-> etc..) to recover the most up to date version this is not a simple thing only a full backup of the DB files is required the quick SQL system backup would not be enough. At least I don't think so!
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 From what I gather you would need to reinstall the SIMS system (About 30 minutes if your good ) then you would need to recover the database from the tape backup then you would run the quick backup (System->Tools-> etc..) to recover the most up to date version this is not a simple thing only a full backup of the DB files is required the quick SQL system backup would not be enough. At least I don't think so! Oh and the FMS database probably hasn't been backup up at all! Wes
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Quick update to my original impression the DB backup is only about 98mb for me presently and the full SIMS.MBF is 503mb now please forgive me but this seems like an incremental backup to me? Sorry for being an idiot but I think it backs up the most up-to-date data? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll retract that now, sorry, yes the System backup is a very well compressed copy of the main SIMS.MDF file not sure about the several other files don't think they are needed to return to a decent state of operation (I think they get created when the SQL server service runs?) Wes
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 Don't even mention FMS! I'm more and more worried as this thread goes on!
NetworkGeezer Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Don't even mention FMS! I'm more and more worried as this thread goes on! You've done all you can do. Just note it all down an email the Head (acting Head )
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 You've done all you can do. Just note it all down an email the Head (acting Head ) Noooo, that's my old school where I'm hoping to return. But the head here will certainly be informed. I've come up with a problem. You can't change the backup path... and I only have 1.2gb spare.... I'm going to try it with the 1.2gb... It fails...telling me that I don't have enough space to backup (I have 1258mb, need 134541mb!) Jeeps! What now? Can I move that ldf file?
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 Don't worry about it! Right here's what to do. Go to the setups directory and move all of the files to another location on a different server (This is temporary of course!) Then locate the backup directory and move all of the backup files to another server also! (Again temporary) You should have quite a bit more space! The SIMS files backup: you can stop the service for about 5 minutes and copy all of the sql files to another location (You have now got your backup!!!!!) Start up the service again and run the backup that has been suggested earlier. Stop the FMS sqlanywhere service and copy the files from your "YOURSIMSServer\sims\SQL\" this is where the Finance module holds its data!.
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 You now have a couple of backup copies of the servers main data the rest can be setup from scratch if needed! Copy the setups files back! Start up the SQLAnywhere finance service. Log into the SIMS .NET program. Click on solus! this will take you to the main capita site download the newest solussetup program from there! You then want to phone capita or your SIMS support team and ask for the newest url to use within the solus setup. Put this in and follow the surprisingly simple instructions this will hopefully upgrade your system to the newest version! If you want to that is please do all of this from the SIMS Server itself though lol! March upgrade has issues with Assesssment Manager and there is now a fix for that too so hopefully it'll all work out fine! Wes
NetworkGeezer Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 I've come up with a problem. You can't change the backup path... and I only have 1.2gb spare.... I'm going to try it with the 1.2gb... It fails...telling me that I don't have enough space to backup (I have 1258mb, need 134541mb!) Jeeps! What now? Can I move that ldf file? You probably need to try the shrink db log batch file. Call Capita first and see that they say.
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 Aye, Capita were my first port of call. As a non-trained SIMS bod, I'm not going anywhere near stopping and starting services. I could, but at the very least, this is well out of the remit of my 'IT Technician' role, and I will not be held responsible for any problems as a result. Interestingly, Capita told me that they're not supporting 7.62 any more - they asked if I was doing an upgrade (foolishly I said no, and confirmed the lowly version), then argued that I would do an upgrade, but I'd still have the same disk space issue and backup problems! I think that my rather fraught tone made them try and get to the supportdesk.... ... who were all busy. So, I'm waiting on a call back. I am going to go through the roof to my line manager about this one....
DMcCoy Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 The backup produced with system manager, or with the dbattach command can be used to restore a sims database, I have done it with no issues previously. The one done with dbattach does however need a batch file to restore it, as it adds the sims user back to the permisions of the sql server as this is not backed up, although it is simply one user afaik (the others are part of the sims database itself). FMS is also a seperate database (some ancient old db server) and can be backed up with a normal file backup if it is not in use, either that or you must schedule it to stop its services and make a copy, mine is held in a d:\sims\sims\sql folder. I keep an eye on the state of the backups as I don't stop the service currently. I use dbattach to schedule an online dump of the sims.net database each day, this is put in the backups directory and gets included in the normal file backups, I trim the directory every week or two, keping various different ages of backup. If it is backed up properly, then the ldf file is truncated and will not grow large. when a ldf file is truncated it produces an unsightly red error in the event log like this 18278 : Database log truncated: Database: sims. This appears to be done by the backup, but it means you cannot restore to a specific point, and require the full backup you just made, although this method seems to be used by bromcom too. Probably more an issue if its going to cost you millions to fix your databases
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 In most cases its best to let the SIMS support team break it then its their fault @DMcCoy: Its the old sql system that capita where going to use for the full SIMS .Net package until they found it couldn't do enough of the things needed and so they ported the SIMS to MS SQL Finance is still on the old system because of the full re-write it needs to be moved to MS SQL. Foresight what a wonderful trait! As for the backups I'd run the NM over lol! Wes
wesleyw Posted March 16, 2006 Posted March 16, 2006 DMcCoy and Networkgeezer are correct though I think my wires have got crossed sorry about that please ignore the messages about the DB incremental backups! The last couple of messages though will sort out your problem and starting and stopping the services isn't going to cause you any problems (If it doesn't restart just reboot lol) Wes
indiegirl Posted March 16, 2006 Author Posted March 16, 2006 Man, I love Capita: "Dear Zoe, this is the solution for your problem: Windows Scripting Host (WSH) is not running. Enable this and re-run the backup" Don't make me laugh Capita....
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