Cleanup of backup Catalog using retention policy in HANA DB 2.0 using HANA Cockpit

Dear All Readers,

This blog is about what is HANA DB Backup Catalog and how we can check the size of Backup Catalog and how we can automate the old backup catalog cleanup using backup retention policy in HANA cockpit.

We have below phases as part of this blog to cover Backup catalog cleanup using backup retention policy in HANA cockpit:-

1. Overview
2. Size of Backup Catalog
   
3. Pros and Cons of Backup Catalog
   
4. Automate using Retention policy
   
5. Conclusion
6. Reference

1. Overview:-

Every SAP system is having Data base and their is also a mechanism to take full backup of database and its  log backups. Backup catalog contain the information of every full DB backup and log backups which were executed for database. We can schedule these backup either using DB13, HANA DB studio and HANA Cockpit.

When you need to perform the point in time  DB recovery then  Backup catalog comes in the picture because it is having record of every completed backup and log backups. So, during DB recovery system check the Backup catalog and take the all log backups which are required in point in time recovery.

We can check backup catalog in HANA studio as given below:-

Open the Backup console of HANA Studio, you will be able to see catalog details:-

Backup Catalog

2. Size of Backup Catalog:-

Next how we can check the Backup catalog size, we need to run below below script in HANA DB.

HANA_Backups_CatalogSize.txt

you can download this script from 1969700 – SQL Statement Collection for SAP HANA this SAP Note.

SAP has already provided scripts for various issues.

Catalog size

As per above screen you can see that Catalog size is 45.68 MB and catalog is having 214 days oldest backup record.

3. Pros and Cons of Backup Catalog:-

Large Backup Catalog size can create below issues:-

• Backup run time increase:- If catalog backup size is large then it will definitely increase daily backup time.
• System performance:- Large backup catalog also impact the system performance due to backup run time has been increased and backup.log file has been increased.

4 . Automate using Retention policy:-

We can delete the backup catalog from HANA studio also by using below steps:-

• Go to backup catalog
• right click on backup
• choose delete data backup or delete older backups
• then you can choose delete backup with catalog

but its a manual process.

So SAP introduced Retention policy HANA 2.0 SP 03 on-wards with SAP HANA cockpit 2 SP07

Perform below steps in HANA cockpit to apply 30 days retention policy for DB catalog deletion in SYSTEM DB and same steps you can apply for Tenant DB as well :-

• Login to HANA Cockpit and then select the system database of any system.
• Click on manage database backups option

HANA COCKPIT

• click on configure backup

Configure_Backup

• click on Retention Policy and maintain details as per below screen shot:-

Retention_Policy

5. Conclusion:-

After applying above mentioned retention policy system will automatically delete backup catalog older then 30 days. No manual intervention is required.

6. References:-

For more information please refer to:-

https://help.sap.com/viewer/afa922439b204e9caf22c78b6b69e4f2/2.10.0.0/en-US/7c8ceb2924414f58b522aacebab55001.html