Afraid Of Save-While-Active?

Although the save-while-active parameter has been around for many years for backups, a lot of customers are afraid to use it in their save commands. Maybe they heard something bad about it at a conference, or maybe they tried it unsuccessfully. I’ve found this parameter to be very helpful if you understand it.

The best way to use it is to shut down any application that’s using the library you want to back up. Or, have all users leave the application. This is where the confusion arises: save-while-active implies that you should be able to back up objects in a library while an application is active. In my opinion, it should be called reduce-your-backup-window (but, who would get excited about that name?).

Let’s say your backups currently take two hours and during that time, your users can’t use their application. What if I told you that you could reduce their wait time from two hours to ten minutes?

With Robot/SAVE, Robot/CONSOLE, and save-while-active you can, and without programming.

With Robot/SAVE, you can specify save-while-active on your backups. Robot/SAVE shuts down your application and can set up a message queue for the CPI370 message that signifies backup processing has reached a checkpoint. The CPI3710 message usually arrives on your message queue after about five to twenty minutes, depending on the library and its contents. Robot/CONSOLE can automatically monitor the queue and execute commands based on the arrival of this message. The result—your wait time is shortened dramatically.

Need to know more? Just contact Technical Support—they’ll be glad to help.