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System Analyst at First Line Software
Question Flávio Lúcio Naves Júnior · Nov 3, 2023

Restoring a backup using a .DAT file

Good afternoon, everyone,

I would like to know if it's possible to restore a backup directly from a .DAT file, or if it's only possible to restore a backup made with a .cbk file?

Best regards, Flávio."

Product version: Ensemble 2018.1

Comments

Danny Wijnschenk · Nov 3, 2023

If the .DAT file was copied while Ensemble was running, it could be corrupt (there could be blocks that were written in memory but not yet to disk). The only reliable way to use a .DAT file as backup is when the file was copied while Ensemble was down, or when the file was dismounted. (the .lck file should not be present in the same directory as the .DAT file)
The good thing about a backupped .DAT file is that you can mount it as a new database, and copy stuff from it while the rest is still running as is.

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Timo Lindenschmid  Nov 6, 2023 to Danny Wijnschenk

just to mention this is not totally correct. Ensemble/IRIS does not need to be stopped to take a backup of dat files. There is an api that can be used to freeze and thaw disk activity during a backup. This is intended to be used with snapshot type backups though as the freeze duration is limited by memory available and DB activity.
refer to: Backup - external freeze

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