ASA Database Administration Guide
Backup and Data Recovery
Designing backup procedures
This section assumes that you are familiar with basic concepts related to backups.
For more information about concepts related to backups, see Introduction to backup and recovery, and Understanding backups.
Backups can be categorized in several ways:
Full backup and incremental backup A full backup is a backup of both the database file and of the transaction log. An incremental backup is a backup of the transaction log only. Typically, full backups are interspersed with several incremental backups.
For more information on making backups, see Making a full backup, and Making an incremental backup.
Server-side backup and client-side backup You can execute an online backup from a client machine using the Backup utility. To execute a server side backup, you execute the BACKUP statement; the database server then carries out the backup.
You can easily build server side backup into applications because it is a SQL statement. Also, server-side backup is generally faster because the data does not have to be transported across the client/server communications system.
Instructions for server-side and client-side backups are given together for each backup procedure.
Archive backup and image backup An archive backup copies the database file and the transaction log into a single archive file, typically on a tape drive. An image backup makes a copy of the database file and/or the transaction log, each as separate files. You can only carry out archive backups as server-side backups, and you can only make full backups.
You should use an archive backup if you are backing up directly to tape. Otherwise, an image backup has more flexibility for transaction log file management.
Archive backups are supported on Windows NT/2000/XP and UNIX platforms only. On Windows CE, only image backups are permitted.
For more information on archive backups, see Backing up a database directly to tape.
Online and offline backup Backing up a running database provides a snapshot of a consistent database, even though other users are modifying the database. An offline backup consists simply of copying the files. You should only carry out an offline backup when the database is not running, and when the database server was shut down properly.
The information in this chapter focuses on online backups.
Live backup A live backup is a continuous backup of the database that helps protect against total machine failure.
For more information on when to use live backups, see Protecting against total machine failure.
For more information on how to make a live backup, see Making a live backup.