Replication confusion

[Casper]

OE10.1B03: Replication
AIX 5.3 TL7

I did some tests with replication. And I found out I don't understand some things with regard to some target parameter settings.
I use, among others, the following parameters:

backup-method=full-online
backup-arguments=aftertransition.budb
recovery-backup-arguments=recovery.budb

I transition the database to a normal database. I expect the full online backup to take place after the transtion to a normal database. But this doesn't happen.
The recovery backup is taken but the normal backup after transition not.

I actually hoped that the database after transition would enable AI during the online backup

Is there something wrong with my expectation or do I have some misconfiguration? Is it not possible to use recovery-backup-arguments and backup-arguments at the same time?

Talking about replication, I would really appreciate getting some (replication specific) parameter settings for both the source and the target database. I find the Progress documentation quite confusing about this subject.

TIA,

Casper.

 

[TomBascom]

Do you mean like this?

source.repl.properties:

# source.repl.properties
#
# OE Replication property file for a database that is to be used as a source
# database.
#
# edit, rename as <dbname>.repl.properties and place in the same directory
# as the .db file
#

[server]
    control-agents=spare, devel
    database=sports2000
    transition=manual
    transition-timeout=600
    repl-keep-alive=300
    defer-agent-startup=1440

[transition]
   database-role=reverse

[control-agent.spare]
   name=spare
   database=sports2000
   host=localhost
   port=7001
   connect-timeout=120
   replication-method=async
   critical=0

[control-agent.devel]
   name=devel
   database=sports2000
   host=localhost
   port=7002
   connect-timeout=120
   replication-method=async
   critical=0

source.pf:

# server parameters
#
-spin 7500
-pica 8192                      # size of buffer for notes
-DBService replserv

target.repl.properties:

# target.repl.properties
#
# OE Replication property file for a database that is to
# be used as a TARGET database.
#
# copy to <dbname>.repl.properties in the same directory
# as the .db file and edit to suit the circumstances
#

[agent]
   database=sports2000
   name=spare
   listener-minport=7010
   listener-maxport=7019

[transition]
   database-role=reverse
   restart-after-transition=1
   transition-to-agents=spare, devel
   auto-begin-ai=1
   backup-method=mark
   normal-startup-arguments= -pf normal.pf
   source-startup-arguments= -pf source.pf
   target-startup-arguments= -pf target.pf

target.pf:

#
# server parameters
#
-spin 7500
-pica 8192                      # size of buffer for notes
-DBService replagent
-S 7001

 

[Casper]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for replying.

You use backup-method=mark. I am trying to use backup-method=online together with backup-arguments=aftertransition.budb and recovery-backup-arguments=recovery.budb. Database role after transition is normal.

From what I understand, reading the documentation, this should make a recovery backup for the transition to a normal database. This happens. But I also thought that after the transition an online backup of the normal database would automatically take place.

In short I am trying to figure out the purpose of the backup-arguments=.... recovery-bacup-arguments=..... parameters together with backup-method=online.

In the traget.repl.properties file the following is stated:

backup-method:
full-online -- An online backup is performed after the database is
restarted, which occurs after the database has been
transitioned.
The arguments required for the full online and offline backups
that are performed for the database. At a minimum, the target
file or device must be specified in these arguments for both
online and offline backups.

this led me to believe that I could use both recovery-backup-arguments=.... and backup-arguments to get 2 backups during the transition proces, 1 for the revovery of the transition to a normal database and one ater the database has transitioned to a normal database. (I actually even expected progress to enable ai during the online backup after transition.
But this doen't seem to happen...

Another anoying thing is that the database is started with the -db argument after transition to a normal database, while we use the -db argument always in the normal.pf file.

Regarding the parameters, thanks I had the same idea on the use of -pica.
Is it necessary for the target database to start with the same -Mn, -Ma, -B parameters as the source database?
Is it helpfull to start a biw, wdog and apw's for the target?

Regards,

Casper.

 

[Casper]

No one?

Casper.

 

[TomBascom]

Be patient young padawan...

With any luck I'll find time to run some test cases later this week

 

[Casper]

Yes, Master

 

[TomBascom]

This is taking a lot longer than I hoped.

In a nutshell -- OE Replication sort of works ok so long as you don't have any problems.

The product is incredibly fragile. If any little thing isn't perfect it won't work and it will refuse to say why. Errors and diagnostics are for all intents and purposes completely absent. What little it does write to log files seems to be intentionally wrong. The documentation is so incomplete, misleading and just plain wrong that you're probably better off not reading it. And so on. 10.2 seems to be slightly less fragile than 10.1.

I'm still working on getting it under control but don't hold your breath.

 

[Casper]

Thanks Tom,

Just my experience so far. I believe I tried every combination of parameters and can't get it to work the way I hoped too. I decided to go back to plain old scripting. With failover (dsrutil transition) I just change the db to a normal database and restart it with the appropiate pf.
After that i make an online backup which also enables ai. So whenever a failure occurs, I just have to run this script for all present databases on a particular LPAR and all works out well. I tested this with some 5 database ranging in size from 1 to 6GB and the whole transistion and backup part is finished within 5 minutes.
Still kinda neat I guess.

Thanks for your time.

I have to wait a few months until te next version of our application comes out in order to test this in a good environment with 10.2A. We'll see how that works out.

Regards,
Casper.