Backing up or syncing a live mdb file?

Hi
As I have a few questions I thought I’d break them up into separate posts.

I recently started using True Image Home version 9.0 (build 3,633). I am using it in a small hotel office setup with 4 workstations and an argosy HD-363N SAN device. The workstations are all Dell Dimension 3000. In this setup one of the workstations is set up as a file server for the reservation database and the others all point to it.

I have TI now set up doing nightly backups of the hotel’s reservation database. This database is an Access .mdb file. The late night shift comes in and verifies that all of the workstations are logged out of the database then the backup runs.

However this still leaves a possible loss of a full days worth of reservations. I’d like to set TI up for running incremental backups every half hour or so but it needs to be done when people are logged into the database.

How do I go about backing up the mdb file when users are logged into it?

Note: It doesn’t have to be a TI solution and the company will spend money on a solution.


Thanks!

 

Sounds like, first of all, you want to be running a RAID 1 pair of disks. There are more complicated RAID options but that one, and some of the others will protect you against a single disk failure and does so on the fly, so to speak. If one disk failed at any time, the other disk would allow you to continue without pause. So, in essence, you have a continuously updated backup of your disk.

 

I can't find the link but I think that you may need one of the higher-powered TI backup solutions rather than Home for reliably backing up a running database. Whether or not the requirement is dependent on the number of pending transactions, I don't know.

 

Not sure if you actually have Access on that machine, but another option would be to have an Access program run on a 60 minute timer and export the key tables from the registration system to a backup MDB on an hourly basis. That way Access will take care of the multi-user access issues and you can stick with ATI doing the nightly backup. Another thing you could do is turn on logging. I think Access does this, but not sure. Most SQL systems include MS SQL Server will generate a running log of SQL transactions. In the event of a db failure, you can restore the backup from the previous evening and then re-process the SQL command list to rebuild all the changes. The log or backup MDB would naturally need to be saved to a different drive.

 

Better yet - just checked and Access can do replication, much more efficient than a full export. Just set a routine in your Access code to synchronize with a replica of the MDB on a separate drive. See the help file for details.

 

Thanks!

That would be a perfect solution !

I'm loking into it now.

 

Hello ackray,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

Please be aware that only Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation and Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows allow one to efficiently backup complex applications such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or Microsoft Exchange and the alike. In case of using Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and a VSS compatible database the back up process is fully-automatic. Otherwise, one will need to suspend the appropriate Windows services to preserve database consistency on the application-level which can be done automatically as well. Please see this FAQ Article and section 6.3.4\5.3.5 of Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows\Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows User's Guide for further details.

We also recommend that you download and install the free trial version(s) of the product(s) you are interested in to see how the software works on your particular software\hardware configuration.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows and Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows in the above mentioned User's Guides.

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Thank you.
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Alexey Popov