Performing Cumulative Dumps

The dump database command allows you to perform a cumulative backup, in which you make a copy of all the pages in the database that have been modified since the last full database dump.

Cumulative backups let you:

Periodically roll forward a full backup of a database without having to back up the entire database.
Recover changes that have been done with minimal logging (such as select into, when full logging is not enabled, and parallel sort).
Speed recovery time – recovery time is minimized when compared to a strategy that uses transaction log dumps, as most of the changes you need are already applied.
Reduce backup size, especially in those databases that hold big read-only tables.
Improve backup performance, especially on database loads that have substantial updates on a subset of the database pages.
Estimate both the dump and the load time in advance.
Incrementally back up low-durability databases.

You can perform a cumulative dump and load in SAP ASE by specifying the new cumulative option in the dump database and load database commands.

You can have dump-and-load sequences that include a full database dump (using dump database database_name full), a cumulative dump (using dump database database_name cumulative), and transaction log dumps (using dump tran[saction] database_name ).

You can perform a cumulative dump on any database except master and temporary databases. This includes low-durability databases (those created with a durability other than full). Until SP100, only dump database was supported on these databases, as earlier versions did not support load transaction. You can now perform a cumulative dump instead of a transaction log dump and have up-to-the-minute recovery of such databases.

You can also perform cross-platform cumulative dumps.

Note: You cannot perform cumulative dumps in the Cluster Edition.

Dump and Load Sequences
You can perform cumulative dumps instead of transaction log dumps between full database dumps.
Partially Logged Operations and Cumulative Dumps
You can use cumulative dumps to incrementally dump the database after a partially logged operation such as select into (when full logging is not enabled), or parallel create index.
Restrictions
There are several restrictions that apply to cumulative dumps.

Parent topic: Backing Up and Restoring User Databases