Back up to standard output
A backup to standard output creates an archive in the memory buffer provided by the operating system. If you choose to back up to standard output, you do not need to provide tapes or other storage media.
- There are no expensive write and read operations to disk or tape.
- You can use operating system utilities to compress or otherwise process the data.
- You can use the archive to create a duplicate of the server by immediately restoring the data onto another database server.
When ontape performs a backup to standard output, the data is written to an output file. The directory of the output must have enough disk space to hold the backed-up data. You can use operating system utilities to compress the data. In addition, the user executing the backup command must have write permission to the file to which the backup is diverted or permission to create the file.
When you back up to standard output, ontape does not prompt for user interaction. Error and information messages are written to stderr instead of being directed to standard output.
The TAPESIZE configuration parameter is not used because the capacity of standard output is assumed to be unlimited. The TAPEBLK configuration parameter, however, is valid because it defines the size of the transport buffer between the backend server and the ontape client. You can optimize throughput by setting TAPEBLK to an appropriate value.
You can simultaneously back up and restore a database server to clone it or set up High-Availability Data Replication. For more information, see Simultaneous backup and restore by using standard I/O.