SAP HANA Academy: Backup and Recovery – Backup Catalog

The SAP HANA Academy has published a new video in the series SAP HANA SPS 7 Backup and Recovery.

Backup and Recovery – Backup Catalog | SAP HANA

In this video, we briefly introduce you how to work with the Backup Catalog and the monitoring views M_BACKUP_CATALOG and M_BACKUP_CATALOG_FILES.

This query, for examples, get’s you all the data and log backup files needed to recover using the latest backup

SELECT DESTINATION_PATH
  FROM M_BACKUP_CATALOG_FILES
WHERE BACKUP_ID >= (SELECT TOP 1 BACKUP_ID
                          FROM M_BACKUP_CATALOG
                      WHERE STATE_NAME = 'successful'
                        AND ENTRY_TYPE_NAME = 'complete data backup'
                      ORDER BY UTC_START_TIME desc)

hdbbackupcheck

The main part of the tutorial video is about  a new tool introduced with SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 7 (or revision 64 to be exact): hdbbackupcheck.

You can use the hdbbackupcheck tool to check (data or log) backup files for changes, e.g. after the files have been transferred from the database to an external backup tool. The tool imports the backup file, checks the metadata for correctness and consistency, and checks whether  contents have changed.

hana:/usr/sap/DB1/HDB01> hdbbackupcheck -h

Usage: hdbbackupcheck [options] <backup> [-i <backupid>] [-e <ebid>]

Options:

  -v: display all known information

  –backintParamFile <filename>: use parameter file specified for a backint call

hana:/usr/sap/DB1/HDB01>

The tool is called with the data or log backup file as input and, optionally, a -v (erbose) flag for more detailed output. The file can be checked against a backup ID or, when using BACKINT, an external backup id (EBID).

The interesting aspect about this tool is that it can be used outside of the context of a SAP HANA installation on any SUSE Linux host.

hana:/usr/sap/DB1/HDB01/backup/log> cdexe

hana:/usr/sap/DB1/SYS/exe/hdb> hdbbackupcheckpack hdbcheck

a hdbbackupcheck

a libhdbbackup.so

a libhdbbasement.so

a libhdbbasis.so

a libhdbconfig.so

a libhdbcrypto.so

a libhdbcsbase.so

a libhdbdataaccess.so

a libhdblicensing.so

a libhdblttbase.so

a libhdbpersistence.so

a libhdbtransactionmanager.so

a libhdbunifiedtable.so

a libhdbunifiedtypes.so

a libhdbversion.so

a libicudata.so.46

a libicui18n.so.46

a libicuuc.so.46

a libirc.so

a libxmldom.so

hana:/usr/sap/DB1/SYS/exe/hdb> cp hdbcheck $HOME

hana:/usr/sap/DB1/SYS/exe/hdb> cd $HOME

hana:~> mkdir hdbcheckdir

hana:~> mv hdbcheck hdbcheckdir/

hana:~> cp $DIR_INSTANCE/exe/SAPCAR hdbcheckdir/

hana:~> cd hdbcheckdir

hana:~/hdbcheckdir> ll

total 145980

-rw-r—– 1 db1adm sapsys 145155119 2014-01-24 16:36 hdbcheck

-rwxr-x— 1 db1adm sapsys  4170776 2014-01-24 16:39 SAPCAR

hana:~/hdbcheckdir> ./SAPCAR -xvf hdbcheck

SAPCAR: processing archive hdbcheck (version 2.01)

x hdbbackupcheck

x libhdbbackup.so

x libhdbbasement.so

x libhdbbasis.so

x libhdbconfig.so

x libhdbcrypto.so

x libhdbcsbase.so

x libhdbdataaccess.so

x libhdblicensing.so

x libhdblttbase.so

x libhdbpersistence.so

x libhdbtransactionmanager.so

x libhdbunifiedtable.so

x libhdbunifiedtypes.so

x libhdbversion.so

x libicudata.so.46

x libicui18n.so.46

x libicuuc.so.46

x libirc.so

x libxmldom.so

SAPCAR: 20 file(s) extracted

hana:~/hdbcheckdir> export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/hdbcheckdir:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

hana:~/hdbcheckdir> ./hdbbackupcheck

Usage: ./hdbbackupcheck [options] <backup> [-i <backupid>] [-e <ebid>]

Options:

  -v: display all known information

  –backintParamFile <filename>: use parameter file specified for a backint call

hana:~/hdbcheckdir>

The tool hdbbackupcheck is documented in the SAP HANA Administration Guide for SPS 7 and SAP Note 1869119

hdbbackupdiag

The other tool demonstrated, is hdbbackupdiag. In SPS 7 a new flag is introduced, which is somewhat confusingly called check, as it does not do what hdbbackupcheck does.

With flag –check, hdbbackupdiag checks if

• the location (file system) or external backup tool is correct
• the current operating system user has read authorization for the file
• the backup ID corresponds to the backup ID specified in the backup catalog

hana:~/hdbcheckdir> hdbbackupdiag -h

Usage: hdbbackupdiag [options] [-d <directory>] { -b <backup> | -c <backup catalog> }

Options:

        –generate: generates a new backup catalog using data path given by –dataDir and log paths given by –logDirs options

        –dump: dumps the content of the backup catalog

=== NEW in SPS 7 ===

        –check: check for files using data path given by –dataDir and log paths given by –logDirs options

        –useBackintForCatalog: search backup catalog in backint if –check is given

        –backintDataParamFile <filename>: backint parameter file to use if –check is given

        –backintLogParamFile <filename>: backint parameter file for log backups to use if –check is given

        -i <backup_id>: check files beginning with given backup id

===

        -f: display filenames only

        -v: display all known information

        -u “YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS”: defines UNTIL timestamp in UTC

Notes:

        if -d is not defined the current directory will be used otherwise the specified directory must be an absolute path

        the specified backup_catalog or backup must be relative to current directory or the directory specified with -d

hana:~/hdbcheckdir>

Another usage for the hdbbackupdiag tool is the (re-)generation of the backup catalog (Note 1812057).

The tool hdbbackupidag is documented in the SAP HANA Administration Guide for SPS 7 and SAP Notes 1873247 and 1812057

SAP HANA Academy

Denys van Kempen