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Best Practices: What is a best backup plan on BO 4.0

Former Member
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Hi Experts!

I work with BO since 2007. I worked a lot with BO XI 3.1 and now with BI 4.0. I always have a question about the way to make a backup: What is a best backup plan on BO 4.0.

I know de many way to do this, but how I'm a consultant developer and backup usually is not my responsibility, but always I have to advise my clients and users.

The little summary of ways I know on BI 4.0:

- Stop the services and do a backup of repository database and FileStore folder (eventually include the TomCat folder and others BO installation folders)

- Create a job on LCM and a schedule to export a LCMBIAR file

- Use the Upgrade Management Tool to generate a BIAR file by the command line

I found that interesting post of Raphael Branger, but his the best option is to use the 360View, but that software I don't know, and the clients usually want to use the SAP solutions, so the preference is use the BO's way to make backup.

Backup & Recovery in BO 4.0

Note: I agree with Raphael about the old Import Wizard, I don't know why Upgrade Management Tool don't allow to import a biar file that same version of target. It is terrible.

Let me make a the big question: What is a best backup plan on BO 4.0?

I know that this depends of the environment and the many variables, but let us consider the general environment, the standard installation.

Thanks everybody!

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

CdnConnection
Active Contributor
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Gustavo,

     You full back-up strategy should include FileStore folder, CMS DB, Audit DB, Derby DB and DATA folder.   The cold back-up should be done on a weekly basic and BI 4.0 now also comes with Hot-Backup that can be on a daily basic.  Hot-backup only does the CMS and FileStore.

Most people forget about the Derby Db (Monitoring DB) and DATA folder  (holds your Explorer Index and other cached files).

Regards,

Ajay

Answers (4)

Answers (4)

Former Member
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It will be great if SAP comes up with a solution which automates the backup through version management, especially for objects that can be created by the business users. Everything else can be restored as they go through the development life-cycle.

We can easily find reports that have changed over a period (daily/weekly) through script and be able to use the version management to check-in the changed versions. Currently the version management is not available to be accessed through SDK.

Given that we can configure VMS to point to a subversion hosted on a different server, this would provide us an easier method to backup and restore.

Think about it - restoring to a version just by going to CMC and finding the deleted object or finding an old version.

former_member218161
Discoverer
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Hi Guys,

What would be the best approach to Full backup and restore BO XI 3.1 From 1 Windows server to another another server.

Is that using (CMS DB + File Store) or using a BIAR back up and import to the Destination system will be good? We have 1000 Users, 10 Universes and 15 Groups in the source System.

Please suggest your points.

Thanks, Jo.

Former Member
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Hi Joby,

For the BO 3.1 I recommend to do the follows backups:

1) Stop services and do a backup of CMS database and File Store directory.

2) Do a hot-backup with the Import Wizard by prompt command (bat script).

The backup 2 is good when you just need to restore one or few objects. With that method is not necessary to stop the server, and with Import Wizard you can chose the object you want to restore from BIAR file. That method is more usefull in the most of cases.

I have a blog and a post of the BIAR Backup method, however, it is written in Brazilian Portuguese. I believe the Google Translation can help you. There is a complete script to you use.

Rotina de backup pelo método BIAR | BusinessObjects

Regards

Gustavo Oliveira

Former Member
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Thanks Mrinal and Ajay,

On my experience I always use the full-backup: repository database backup + filestore folder backup (usually I recommend include BO folder installation and TomCat folder too because the custom configurations). That backup is essential, is basic.

But this backup is not flexible.The usual problems on BO's production enviroment is accidental deletion of some reports or objects of BO. Since BO XI R2 I used the "Import Wizard" to generate BIAR files by the command line, I usually create a BAT file with command line to create thats files, however BO 4 Import Wizard was died, now exists "Upgrade Management Tool", but I can create BIAR files by the command line too. Let's suppose a case that the BO user has deleted a report and that user did notified that deletion after 1 month. We don't need to restore all objects of the full-backup of 1 month ago, with BIAR files, we can restore only that report. Thats is the advantage of using BIAR files.

So, my strategy is use the full-backup (repository database + BO installation folder) and create BIAR files.

What do you think about the backup by generating BIAR files?

Former Member
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Gustavo,

BIAR files is a good option of taking the backup as long as you are restricting the size of each BIAR file to a certain limit (I guess it is between 20 ~ 50 MB) What has been observed is that the BIAR files tend to get corrupt if the size increases this limit and if yours is a big environment, then I wouldnt recommend using BIAR files.

Regards,

Mrinal

Former Member
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I have to agree with Gustavo.  I've worked with BOXI R2, R3.1 and we're currently moving to BI4.1, and having to restore data is a nightmare if you only backup the FileStore and the DB's.  In fact, while I'm trying to drag users from our R2 environment so I can hand the kit back to our Infrastructure team, I'm having to build an offline R2 environment, to restore the whole thing, then export out a BIAR file to import into our Dev and then Prod servers.  Nightmare.

I'm implementing a backup of the FileStore and DB, but I'm also configuring LCMBIAR exports at the command line (I tried it in LCM, but according to our support company, you can't export the LCMBIAR files to the server itself)  as a scheduled task so we can easily restore universes and reports.  Its the only way that I can ensure we get a complete backup, and the ability to restore in a granular mannor.

HTH

Former Member
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Hi Gustavo,

In my opinion and as per my past experiences, the best possible plan is to take a backup of the FileStore folder (which includes report templates, instances, etc) and the backup of the CMS DB.

This is sufficient to recover your entire system in case of a disaster recovery. If you are also planning to backup the server configurations, you can do that via Central Configuration Manager.

Also, BI 4 offers a backup plan which you can setup by logging on to Central Management Console.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Mrinal