Backing Up Databases

Sybase Control Center helps you back up a database and its transaction log.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you can connect to the Backup Server from each Adaptive Server you administer.
Decide on the backup media you will use, and create dump devices that identify the physical backup media to Adaptive Server.
Ensure that the login of the person starting the Backup Server has write permissions for the physical backup dump device, and that the dump device is available.

Task

Although Adaptive Server has automatic recovery procedures to protect you during power outages and computer failures, your best protection against media failure is regular and frequent backups of system and user databases. See the System Administration Guide for details on backup and recovery.

Note: Sybase Control Center checks to see if a Backup Server is available. If it is not, the Backup and Restore wizards will not start.

In the left pane of the Administration Console, expand ASE Servers > Schema Objects > Databases.
Select one of:
- User Databases
- System Databases
- Temporary Databases
- Proxy Databases
- In-Memory Databases
- In-Memory Temporary Databases
Click the Name field of the database you want to back up.
Click the arrow and select Backup.

In the Backup Database wizard, choose from these options:

Inputs for the Backup Database wizard
Input	Description
Type of backup	Back up either the entire database or the transaction log. If you back up only the transaction log, you can choose to: Create either a new transaction log or a new transaction entry in the log Delete the inactive part of the log
Physical File	Specify the dump device path for the backup.
Options	Optionally, specify: Compression level – row-level, or page-level. Remote Backup Server name, if different from SYB_BACKUP. A password to protect the backup from unauthorized access. If you specify a password for backup, you must use the same password while restoring the database.
Dump Performance	Specify the amount of data to be dumped by the Backup Server: Default, Maximum, Minimum, or Advanced. Clicking Advanced allows you to specify threshold values (in percentages) for reserved and allocated pages. See sp_dumpoptimize in the Adaptive Server Reference Manual.

(Optional) Click Summary to verify your selected options.
Click Finish to start the backup. Sybase Control Center displays backup messages from the Adaptive Server.