HanSoft backup

Chapter 3 Backup and Recovery

The Hansoft server has built in support for scheduled backups as well as means to allow direct backup of the database files.

Built in backups can be scheduled in the Server Administrator Client by selecting a database and pressing “Backup settings”. It is recommended that you enable automatic backups and minimally let the project database be backed up once a day. This will allow you to easily recover from accidental deletes and changes of project data. The default setting when a database is created or the server is installed is to backup using this method. You will need to either change the automatic backup setting or complement with another backup method to have full backup of the document management storage as well.

Scheduled backup tasks

There are five different options when creating a scheduled backup task; “No backup, only integrity checking”, ”Only reset transaction log (cannot be recovered)”, “Full projects database”, “Full projects database and document management files” & “Full projects database and incremental document management files”.

No backup, only integrity checking

The purpose of this option is to check that the database is in a good shape. If the integrity check fails, an email is sent (if the server is configured to do that) to the server administrator.

The default option for a new database is to do a backup once per day. This backup setup does not perform an integrity check of the database after the backup has been done. The reason for this is to minimize the interruption that a backup execution can cause to the people that at the same time are logged in to the database. The scheduled backups can therefore be complemented with a task that only performs the integrity check.

It is possible though as an option to any scheduled backup task to do an integrity check upon completion.

Only reset transaction log (cannot be recovered)

Every time the server is restarted or the database is put online from a previous offline state, the server has to go through the transaction log. If database backs are performed seldom, the transaction log will be fairly large and make the server startup time longer. This option resets the transaction log without performing a backup.

Full projects database

With this option, the complete projects database will be backed up without document management. It is recommended to do this kind of backup every day and every new database is configured to do this by default (the task named “Default Automatic Backup”).

Hansoft System Administrator’s Guide 19

Chapter 3: Backup and Recovery

Full projects database and document management files

With this option, all files in the database and the transaction log will be backed up every time. This is the only option that provides a complete backup. Note though that if many files are added to the document management, this can quickly fill up the available space in the backup location directory if backups are performed every day.

Full projects database and incremental document management files

With this option, only the complete project database, transaction log, the added and the changed files (since the previous backup) from the document management storage is saved to the backup. This backup type typically provides safe backups while keeping the size of the backups to a minimum.

Performing a manual backup

To manually generate a backup select a database in the Server Administrator and press “Backup Now”. Select the type of backup you want to perform and press OK to start the backup. Check the log file for any errors.

Live backup of database files

To make a backup of the database files directly you need to pause the server service to disable writes to the database file while the backup is running. When the service is paused clients will be able to use the project management functions without interruption while the document management operations will wait for the service to be continued before they finish. You could for example pause and continue the service as part of your backup scripts. The following commands would run from the command line would pause and continue the service.

    net pause hpserver
    net continue hpserver

While the service is paused backup the database and transaction log file by default found directly in the installation directory under “DatabasesCompany Projects”.

Shadow volume copy

If the database is fairly large (most likely due to a larger portion of document management), a shadow volume copy is recommended as an external alternative. The advantage of using shadow volume copy is that the downtime is much shorter since the server service can be continued again since the backup copy is now being made from the shadow copy of the harddrive.