Re: {bb} Backup test(s)

[Richard Warkentin <warkentin@bellsouth.net>]

At 11:05 AM 12/1/2004, you wrote:

> I?ve got an application that has burned me a couple of times of late. 
> We?re using IBM?s TSM for SAP/R3 (or MySAP.com as it is now being branded) 
> to back up a 1.2 TB database nightly. There have been a couple of times 
> when the backup has ?hung? and never completed ? and subsequent backups 
> never start, because there?s one ?in process?.
>
> How are the rest of you handling this sort of test? Code the BB 
> start/finish within the backup script and page on purple if it runs long? 
> Run a BB process that checks the status externally from logs or the 
> running process list?


We wrote a tailored "Oracle Backup" test that does quite a lot of 
validation on the backup.  We're running in a hosted environment and one 
goal was not to modify the vendor's backup scripts.  Fortunately, they 
leave the backup and log files where we can see them.

1) A client on each DB server collects status information about each db 
backed up and forwards to a central DB.  The collection job is scheduled to 
run at a time when the backups are normally complete.
2)  Daily, a check job reviews the status of all backups and forwards a) 
status to BB  b) for failed (including  incomplete)  backups, emails are sent.

From memory, some things we check are:L
Backup is complete
No "errors" in the log file
size is reasonable  (at least 90% of last backup)
not over a day since last backup
cron schedule is same as expected

Most information comes from log files, though "size" is determined from the 
actual size of the backups.

Sometimes it seems as though the check is to rigorous but when the vendor 
has a problem, I really appreciate it.

The both parts of the test are written in perl and use the DBI interface.

I'm still accepting on faith that the vendor writes the oracle backups to 
tape but I'm working on it.



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