Backup strategies

Forgive my ignorance, but I am new to the world of Informix databases. I am experienced in Oracle and now must support both database systems. I seek suggestions/recommendations regarding backups of my Informix databases. We are currently using On-Line Dynamic Server version 7.11.UC1 on Sun Solaris 2.4. There are plans to upgrade to 7.23, but that won't occur for several months. I currently have many, many (100+) rather small databases that can easily be backed up using OnArchive (full automation
is important as we do not staff 24x7 and my admin window is 1 - 5 AM.). However, my primary concern is the main production server. The server contains five different databases all sharing the same dbspaces. I find this somewhat disconcerting! (it was inherited!) I discovered that when I use OnArchive to back up these dbspaces, I can not specify which databases I want backed up. My solution would be to either separate the databases into distinct dbspaces, or to create distinct servers for each database. Seems to me that separation of these databases would make recovery more efficient and doable, as well as administration. As I said, I seek suggestions/recommendations regarding backing up these databases. I need to keep disaster recovery in mind when devising my backup policies and procedures.

TIA,
Jeff McCLure
Specialist DB Analyst
Ameritech New Media
Jeff.W.McClure_at_ait4.ameritech.com Received on Sat Jan 24 1998 - 00:00:00 CST