[ale] Backup frequency question

[William Fragakis]

It's not Sybase but the vendor that uses the Sybase db on the backend.
Sybase actually have a simple CLI tool I could use if the vendor would
let me (the paying consumer) but it requires knowing their admin
password to the database and everyone like it. They could embed that
functionality into their software but "have no plans to."

Already started on the homework...

A very good friend who runs a major fin. services firm once had a
presentation by his CIT to the board that went like this: "Most of you
don't know who I am. That means I'm doing my job."

Jim, it's a Sybase product, not Jet. The app is isolated. It's reached
via single window rdesktop sessions from LTSP. 

wf

On Tue, 2010-04-13 at 12:08 -0400, Richard Faulkner wrote:
> Learning is a good thing and researching alternative solutions costs
> only your time and minimal (if no) cash.  You are the consumer and
> should vote with your money.  If Sybase is not responding to valid
> needs of the consumer then it's your right in this economy to vote
> with our money...correct?  (Sorry that I'm stating the obvious).  I
> don't believe in a perfect world but I also don't believe that your
> fears are unfounded.
> 
> Personally I look for redundancy of hardware, redundancy of data and
> remote off-site back-up for business critical systems.  I'm not a
> database guru but sounds like it's time to do some homework....
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Fragakis <william at fragakis.com>
> Reply-to: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes!We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
> Subject: [ale] Backup frequency question
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:21:03 -0400
> 
> Opinions requested from those wiser/smarter than me (which includes all
> of you, your pets and probably your houseplants):
> 
> My wife's medical practice management software writes to a closed source
> database*. Prior to Jan, the version of the database we used allowed for
> "hot" backups - you could copy (we used rsync) the files to another
> server while the database was in use. Thus, we could make hourly copies
> as well as the usual nightly copy which was also sent off site. The
> hourly copies were written to a duplicate machine so if the primary data
> server failed in any catastrophic way, we'd have both the data and a
> machine configured to serve it available quickly. Losing an hour's worth
> of work seemed to be the level of risk we felt we could assume. We don't
> feel comfortable losing a day's worth of work. Of course, the database
> and the duplicate both use RAID 1, the primary server using Windows and
> hardware (motherboard) RAID and the backup, Linux software RAID.
> 
> While the risk of losing both disks of a RAID are statistically low, I'm
> freaky about both data preservation and availability.
> 
> Since Jan., an update in the database version prevents us from making
> live copies (we either have to kick off all the users or ignore file
> locking, both not what you want for obvious reasons). We can still make
> nightly backups but we are "naked" (at least it feels that way) for the
> next 24 hours.
> 
> Ideally, we'd just migrate to an open source solution but, invariably,
> it's not that easy (or at least quick). 
> 
> In the meantime, am I being overly paranoid or should I be concerned? Of
> course, the vendor is telling me that I'm worrying over something that
> has a low probability and at this point has no plans to add a utility to
> the management program to allow live copies - which they could do but
> won't. I can't do it directly because they won't give us the level of
> access to the database we need to do it ourselves. Thoughts?
> 
> TIA,
> William
> 
> *Advantage Database ver. 8.1
> 
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