Unexpected Behavior from Probkup

[BMCPMC SyteLine]

I am the network admin for a mid sized manufacturing shop so I have to wear many hats. Progress is by far not my strong suit and until a year and a half ago hadn't heard of it. A couple of months ago I brought in a consultant to help with getting our plastics division up off of Symix and onto SyteLine and she pointed out that many of the processes put in place by my predecessor were incorrect and in a disaster recovery situation would cause issues. The first that I have started to correct is our backup methodology. Before we would shut the databases down everynight and then to run nt backup them to another directory then to tape and CDP. To correct this I followed the suggestion of my consultant and started using probkup online with mixed results:

1. After the online backup Syte Admin reports no active batabases even though the databases are running.

2. Symlic database will not backup. Errors are:
05:30:00 BACKUP 5: ** Cannot find or open file D:\SL6.0\SYTELINE\db\symlic.b1, errno = 32. (43)
05:30:00 BACKUP 5: ** Cannot find or open file D:\SL6.0\SYTELINE\db\symlic.b1, errno = 2. (43)
05:30:00 BACKUP 5: Backup terminated due to errors. (1617)
05:30:00 BACKUP dbDelUsrctl: SemLockLog ret = -1

3. When I reboot the physical server the primary database, Bach, is listed as active but is inaccessable until you perform an emergency shutdown with proshut.

4. This mourning my users came in and were getting the error "Broker:could not spawn a server (1890)" in the log for symlic the error is "Broker could not spawn a server. (1157)"

I don't know if all of these are related but they all started about the time I started using probkup.

 

[TomBascom]

I don't see anything obviously wrong with your description of your previous backup method. So long as the databases are shutdown and you get all of the files that make up a database a 3rd party backup will work fine.

Probkup does have advantages -- the big one being that it knows where all of the files making up the db are supposed to be and therefore won't miss anything.

What is the complete backup command that leads to the error being reported above? Your situation "smells" like parts of the old process are still present and that the new process isn't meshing properly -- it is as if there is a mix of commands that shutdown syteline and progress and that some of them are still being run but do not need to while others which need to run aren't being run.

If I were you I think that I would make this change in smaller steps -- rather than going directly to an online backup start by keeping your previous offline strategy and just add probkup to it. Then once you are confident that that is working correctly move to an online backup.

I cannot speak to the syteline licensing db issues -- you should probably post that in the syteline forum.

 

[vinod_home]

You would normally test your changes in a test environment and then on the production environment (if you have a test environment).

What version of progress do you have and what steps do you take now thats different from before.

Previously
1. shutdown
2. probkup command
3. restart database

New Changes
1. removed shutdown command
2. probkup online
3. removed restart command

 

[BMCPMC SyteLine]

Tom the command that I am using is:
d:\91c\dlc\bin\probkup online d:\sl6.0\syteline\db\symlic Y:\backup\Syteline\symlic -verbose
I am using this for my other 5 databases and not having an issue. But for some reason this one will not conform.

vinod_home in answer to your questions:
Version 91c
Previously the data collections was shutdown then the databases. The databases were shutdown with a script using proshut with the -by switch. Then copied to another directory to be backed up by Backup Exec. and then the databases and data collections were restarted after Backup Exec was complete. My predecessor explained to me that they did it this way due to issues of the database getting corrupted while Backup Exec was running. Backup Exec is no longer in the picture now that I have my CDP but I cannot directly backup the Progress Databases with the CDP due to file locking issues. The new procedure is pretty much what you described.

 

[TomBascom]

Tom the command that I am using is:
d:\91c\dlc\bin\probkup online d:\sl6.0\syteline\db\symlic Y:\backup\Syteline\symlic -verbose
I am using this for my other 5 databases and not having an issue. But for some reason this one will not conform.

What happens if you backup without the "online" option and while the databases are down?

Also -- double check the state of d:\sl6.0\syteline\db\symlic before doing the backup. Make sure that it is up if you're doing the online backup or down if you're doing offline.

Version 91c

Ancient, obsolete and unsupported. Buggy too.

Previously the data collections was shutdown then the databases.

What is "the data collections"?

The databases were shutdown with a script using proshut with the -by switch. Then copied to another directory...

This is non-sensical. How were they copied? (Why?) Copying a db using OS level tools (as opposed to "procopy") is a recipe for disaster.

... to be backed up by Backup Exec. and then the databases and data collections were restarted after Backup Exec was complete. My predecessor explained to me that they did it this way due to issues of the database getting corrupted while Backup Exec was running. Backup Exec is no longer in the picture now that I have my CDP but I cannot directly backup the Progress Databases with the CDP due to file locking issues. The new procedure is pretty much what you described.

Backup Exec (and other 3rd party backup programs) will not correctly backup a live Progress database. But they are fine for backing up a db which is shutdown.