Preparing for backups

Before vault data can be safely backed up, it must first be prepared. The Meridian Prepare for Backup Wizard does this for you. After flushing all pending transactions to the database engine and closing open files, it creates copies of vault database files, which you may then back up with your normal backup software.

Before you begin

If a scheduled task will be created, it will be helpful to know when other tasks are scheduled on the same computer so that this task can be scheduled to not interfere with those processes and vice versa. We recommend scheduling this task to occur before a recovery log task is executed on the same day and before regular system backups occur. A Prepare for Backup operation can take up to 20 minutes, so this task should be scheduled to occur 30 minutes before any other daily backup tasks and not during production hours.

Note    Changes should not be made in a vault between the time when the backup files are prepared and their corresponding stream files are backed up by a regular system backup. Otherwise, the files will not be synchronized and restoring them later may result in lost changes.

This task must be performed at the Meridian application server and not from a client computer if a scheduled task will be created.

To prepare backup files:

1. In Meridian Enterprise Administrator, click EDM Server in the left pane. The active vaults are listed in the right pane.
2. From the Action menu, point to All Tasks and select Prepare for Backup Wizard. The Prepare for Backup Wizard appears.
3. Click Next. The What to Back Up page appears.
4. Click Browse and select the vault to back up.
5. Click Next. The When to Prepare for Backup page appears.
6. Select Now to create the backup files immediately upon finishing the wizard. Select Later to select options to schedule a job to run at a later time:

1. Type a user ID and password for the job to run as and click OK. By default, the job will be repeated daily at the current time.
   
   Note    We recommend that you specify a user account with a password that never expires. If the user account is removed, or the password either expires or is changed, the scheduled task will fail and backup files will not be created.
2. Click Set Schedule to modify the job’s schedule in the new dialog that appears. Select options on the Schedule page to coordinate the job with other tasks running on the computer and the time when regular system backups occur.
3. Click OK when finished. A new job is created for the Windows Task Scheduler that may be modified with the normal Windows administration tools. For more information about Task Scheduler, refer to the Windows documentation.

7. Click Next. The Completing the Prepare for Backup Wizard page appears.
8. Click Finish. The backup files are created immediately or at the scheduled time.
9. Back up the files with your normal backup software.

The files created by the Prepare for Backup operation reside in a folder named Backup that is a subfolder of the vault folder. The Backup folder for a Hypertrieve vault contains the following files:

• DataStore.ini: Contains vault configuration parameters for use when restoring the vault.
• <VaultName>.snp: Snapshot of the vault database.
• <VaultName>.log: Empty database transaction log necessary to restore the vault.
• <VaultName>$LL.mdb: Microsoft Access database containing custom data tables created in Meridian Enterprise Configurator.

When backup preparation is finished (scheduled or otherwise), back up the BC-Meridian\Vaults folder with your normal backup software (scheduled or otherwise). You should back up each vault folder and all subfolders (streams and Backup folder), but exclude the open database files (*.HDB and *.LCK). The streams folders have 4- or 8-character hexadecimal names, for example, 3D0C or 1FF20BD3.

Tip    When a Prepare for Backup operation is scheduled for later execution, the task executes invisibly in command-line mode. This mode returns an error number if the backup fails, which you can use in a batch file to send an alert message to a system administrator. Following is an example batch file that you can modify for your own requirements:

"C:\Program Files\BC-Meridian\Program\ambackup" MyVault
If errorlevel 0 Goto End
C:\Windows\System32\Net Send Administrator "Backup failed for vault MyVault!"
:End