Backing Up (Dumping) a Database

Use Sybase Control Center to help you back up a database and its transaction log.

Prerequisites
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 verifies that Backup Server is available. If it is not, the Backup and Restore wizards display a message, similar to Default Backup Server is not running, and you cannot proceed.
  1. In the left pane of the Administration Console, expand ASE Servers > Schema Objects > Databases.
  2. Select one of:
    • User Databases
    • System Databases
    • Temporary Databases
    • Proxy Databases
    • In-Memory Databases
    • In-Memory Temporary Databases
  3. Click the Name field of the database you want to back up.
  4. Click the arrow and select Back Up to start the Backup Database wizard.
  5. In the Introduction screen of the Backup Database wizard, choose whether you want to back up the database or transaction log using a dump configuration by selecting Backup using configuration.
    If you back up only the transaction log, you can:
    • Create either a new transaction log or a new transaction entry in the log
    • Delete the inactive part of the log
    Click Next.
  6. In the Dump Devices screen, click Add, or specify the dump device. Click Next.
  7. (Optional) In the Options screen, specify:
    InputDescription
    Compression level
    Row-level, or page-level.
    Block size
    The block size for the dump operation, which overrides the default block size for the device. For optimal performance, specify the block size as a power of 2. Default value is 0.
    Retention time
    The number of days that the dump is preserved and cannot be overwritten. The default value is 0. Specify retention time to override the default value for all dump devices. The backup server does not automatically overwrite data unless it is older than the retention time.
    Password
    This password protects the backup from unauthorized access. If you specify a password here, you must use the same password while restoring the database.

    Click Next.

  8. (Optional) In the Dump Performance screen, choose a setting to optimize the performance of the backup (see sp_dumpoptimize in Reference Manual: Procedures for more information about reserved threshold and allocation threshold settings):
    SettingDescription
    Default
    Dumps the database using default optimize options value. Reserved threshold is set to 85 percent and allocation threshold is set to 40 percent by default.
    Maximum
    Dumps the whole database without determining which pages are allocated. Using Maximum set both reserved threshold and allocation threshold to 0 percent.
    Minimum
    Dumps only the allocated pages, which results in the smallest possible archive image. Minimum sets both reserved threshold and allocation threshold to 100 percent.
    Advanced
    Dumps the database with user-specified values for both reserved threshold and allocation threshold. You can also specify the threshold values for reserved pages and allocated pages.
  9. (Optional) Click Summary to verify your selected options.
  10. Click Finish to start the backup. Sybase Control Center displays backup messages from the Adaptive Server.
Parent topic: Manage Databases
Related tasks
Restoring (Loading) a Database
Creating a Dump Device