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Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
Backup and Restore Guide
The Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the Informix ON-Bar and ontape utilities to back up and restore database server data. These utilities enable you to recover your databases after data is lost or becomes corrupted due to hardware or software failure or accident.
ON-Bar backup and restore system
Back up with ON-Bar
You can use the ON-Bar utility to back up and verify storage spaces (dbspaces, blobspaces, and sbspaces) and logical-log files.
onbar -v syntax: Verifying backups
Use the onbar -v command to verify that backups that were created by the ON-Bar utility are complete and can be restored.
Temporary space for backup verification
When you verify backups, 15-25 MB of temporary space must be available.

Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
- System administration
  These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
- Backup and Restore Guide
  The Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the Informix ON-Bar and ontape utilities to back up and restore database server data. These utilities enable you to recover your databases after data is lost or becomes corrupted due to hardware or software failure or accident.
  - Overview of backup and restore
    These topics provide an overview of backup and restore concepts. They also provide information about planning for backup and restore operations.
  - ON-Bar backup and restore system
    - Overview of the ON-Bar backup and restore system
      ON-Bar consists of various components and it works with a storage manager to back up and restore data.
    - Configure the storage manager and ON-Bar
      The topics in this section provide the information that you need to plan and to set up ON-Bar with a storage manager.
    - Back up with ON-Bar
      You can use the ON-Bar utility to back up and verify storage spaces (dbspaces, blobspaces, and sbspaces) and logical-log files.
      - Preparing to back up data
        Before you back up storage spaces and logical logs, you must prepare the system and copy critical administrative files.
      - onbar -b syntax: Backing up
        Use the onbar -b command to back up storage spaces and logical logs.
      - onbar -m syntax: Monitoring recent ON-Bar activity
        You can monitor recent ON-Bar activity with the onbar -m command. Only users who have permission to perform backup and restore operations can use this option.
      - Viewing a list of registered backups
        You can create a list of the registered ON-Bar backups performed on your system.
      - onbar -P syntax: Printing backed-up logical logs
        You can use the onbar -P command to print logical logs that are backed up using the ON-Bar utility.
      - onbar -v syntax: Verifying backups
        Use the onbar -v command to verify that backups that were created by the ON-Bar utility are complete and can be restored.
        Temporary space for backup verification
        When you verify backups, 15-25 MB of temporary space must be available.
        Verification failures
    - Restore data with ON-Bar
      You can use the ON-Bar utility to restore data that was backed up by the ON-Bar utility.
    - External backup and restore
    - Customize and maintain ON-Bar
    - ON-Bar catalog tables
      These topics describe the ON-Bar tables that are stored in the sysutils database.
    - ON-Bar messages and return codes
      ON-Bar prints informational, progress, warning, and error messages to the ON-Bar activity log file. ON-Bar return codes indicate the status of the command.
  - ontape backup and restore system
  - Backup and restore a Remote Secondary Server(RSS)
  - Integrated Backup Encryption
    These topics provide information about Integrated Backup Encryption.
  - Informix® Primary Storage Manager
    The Informix® Primary Storage Manager manages storage for ON-Bar backup and restore operations, including parallel backups, that use file devices (disks).
  - archecker table level restore utility
  - Backup and restore configuration parameter reference
  - Cloud Backup
    These topics provide information about storing and retrieving the backups directly to the ecosystem of selected cloud providers, namely Amazon S3 and Softlayer Object Storage.
  - Appendixes
- Enterprise Replication
  The HCL® Informix® Enterprise Replication Guide describes the concepts of data replication using Informix Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.

Temporary space for backup verification

When you verify backups, 15-25 MB of temporary space must be available.

During backup verification, the archecker utility requires about 15 MB of temporary space for a medium-size system (40-50 GB) and 25 MB for a large system. This temporary space is stored on the file system in the directory that the AC_STORAGE parameter specifies, not in the dbspaces. The temporary files contain bitmap information about the backup and copies of partition pages, free pages in a chunk, reserved pages, and optionally, free pages in a blobspace and debugging information. The archecker utility must have permissions to the temporary directory.

If the backup is verified successfully, these files are deleted. If the backup fails verification, these files remain. Copy them to another location so that Informix® Software Support can review them.

If your database server contains only dbspaces, use the following formula to estimate the amount of temporary space in KB for the archecker temporary files:

space = (130 KB * number_of_chunks) + (pagesize * number_of_tables) + 
(.05 KB * number_of_logs)

For HCL Informix®, if your database server contains blobspaces or sbspaces, use the following formula to estimate the amount of temporary space for the archecker temporary files:

space = (130 KB * number_of_chunks) + (pagesize * number_of_tables) + 
(.05 KB * number_of_logs) + (pagesize * (num_of_blobpages/252))

number_of_chunks: The maximum number of chunks that you estimate for the database server.
pagesize: The system page size in KB.
number_of_tables: The maximum number of tables that you estimate for the database server.
number_of_logs: The number of logical logs on the database server.
num_of_blobpages: The number of blobpages in the blobspaces or the number of sbspaces. (If your database server contains sbspaces, substitute num_of_blobpages with the number of sbspaces.)

For example, you would need 12.9 megabytes of temporary disk space on a 50-gigabyte system with a page size of 2 KB. This system does not contain any blobspaces, as the following statement shows:

13,252 KB = (130 KB * 25 chunks) + (2 KB * 5000 tables) + 
             (.05 KB * 50 logs) + (2 KB * 0)

To convert KB to MB, divide the result by 1024:

12.9 MB = 13,252/1024