ASA Database Administration Guide
  Backup and Data Recovery
    Backup and recovery tasks

Making a full backup

A full backup is a backup of the database file and the transaction log file.

For more information about the difference between a full backup and an incremental backup, see Types of backup.

To make a full backup (overview)

1. Ensure that you have DBA authority on the database.

2. Perform a validity check on your database to ensure that it is not corrupt. You can use the Validation utility or the sa_validate stored procedure.

   For more information, see Validating a database.

3. Make a backup of your database file and transaction log.

   For information on how to carry out the backup operation, see the following:

   • Making a backup, continuing to use the original transaction log.

   • Making a backup, deleting the original transaction log.

   • Making a backup, renaming the original transaction log.

Notes 

Validity checking requires exclusive access to entire tables on your database. For more information and alternative approaches, see Ensuring your database is valid.

If you validate your backup copy of the database, make sure that you do so in read-only mode. Start the database server with the -r option to use read-only mode.