Backup and Recovery scenario questions

[Former Member]

I've been working through various recovery scenarios. The SAP HANA Administration Guide at SAP Press has been a huge help in understanding the details so a big thank you to Lars and Richard for creating the book.

I'm having trouble finding details on how the recovery process would work in the following two scenarios. Any details or suggestions would be appreciated.

1)  If I have made full database backups and transaction log backups (let’s assume the last one was at 9am) .  I have a data volume failure at 9:15am but the log volume is still available. I understand that the system will replay the log segment when it can if the “most recent state” option was selected.

What if I have the above scenario (log segment is still intact but not yet backed up).  I want to load the backups onto a new location. How do I capture the log records between the last log backup and the point of failure?  Will the log backup run if the index server data volumes are damaged or unavailable?

2) How do you recover off backup if the backup catalog is removed or corrupted? The recovery process appears to be extremely dependent on the backup catalog file and I am curious how we can handle a scenario when that is not available.

Thanks

[lbreddemann]

Hi Christy,

glad to hear you like 's and my book () so much.

It's really motivating to get such positive feedback!

Now to your questions:

1) Ok, basically your scenario is that the data volumes and the HANA server are broken but you managed to save a fairly recent data backup, some log backups and the log volume files and made all of them available on the new piece of hardware.

It's fairly easy then: you can actually place the log volume files where the new instance expects them and they will be then used for the recovery - just as if this was a in-place recovery.

2) A broken, lost or corrupted backup catalog is pretty crappy, but not the end of the world. Check sap note 1812057 Recovery of the backup catalog with hdbbackupdiag

Generally it's a good idea to also check the well maintained body of SAP FAQ notes and knowledge base articles, e.g. 1642148 FAQ: SAP HANA Database Backup & Recovery

Hope that answers your questions and gets you a step further.

Cheers, Lars

[lbreddemann]

to add to this: there's also a pretty good public JAM community around SAP HANA HA and Backup&Recovery: https://jam4.sapjam.com/groups/about_page/EfgUuUevFE8o7iUlqwk1KG

You (and of course everyone interested) may want to have a look there, too.