Backing up open databases

[drmaves]

I am using an Access 2000 database on my web server which is almost constantly open. How can I get a backup of it when it is open. My tape backup system will not back it up when the lock file (.ldb) is present. Is there away close the lock file rather that waiting for it to time out?

 

[allanon]

There is probly many ways to do this. One way that would work that is quite simple would be to execute a batch process that would make a copy of your mdb and then make a backup of that. You would then just do it like this:

1) delete old copy of mdb

2) execute bat file to copy mdb to working directory

3) run backup process on copy of mdb.


Just a thought.

 

[allanon]

PS. you can copy an mdb while it is open.

 

[drmaves]

Yes, you can copy the database file while it's open and yes I could include that action in my batch file. Thanks.

I'm still wondering if there isn't a more elegant way to accomplish this task.

 

[grnzbra]

If you are trying to back up just the data, how about exporting the tables to an external database? One database I worked on had a table whose data would be adulterated if the process stopped in the middle, saved the info to a duplicate table in another database.

 

[cheerio]

If a database has two or more tables and an update process involves changing more than one table at the same time a physical snapshot of the file onto tape could catch the data in an inconsistent state. If this happens and you restore the backup you may get a database that is not usable. For example, a table might have in it a different number of records to the table header so that Access becomes confused. In effect you do not have a real backup.

High volume production databases such as MS SQL server or ORACLE have the database itself do the backup by copying the tables from within. They can do this because every change to a table is logged so you can rebuild a table from the last good copy plus the log.

Ken

Backup of an Access database supporting a web server is particularly important as there have been cases of file corruption when input is through a web front end.

If possible, I would suggest you set up another database - link through to the tables on the server database and use the link to import records added or changed since the previous backup.