The Commvault software provides a simplified end-to-end backup solution for large scale SAP environments. It helps to deliver a robust and comprehensive backup and recovery with significant speed, performance and efficient use of disk and tape drives. It also assists in full system rebuilds and eliminates recovery failures.
Key Features
The SAP MaxDB Agent offers the following key features:
Full Range of Backup and Recovery Options
The SAP agents provide the flexibility to backup the SAP MaxDB databases in different environments. This is very essential since SAP data is subject to constant changes.
You can perform a full or an incremental backup of the entire database at any point of time. The following section describes the backups that can be performed in different environments.
Offline Backup
When the database is shutdown and is not available for use, you can perform a full backup of the database without the logs. This backup is used when the data is consistent and there are no transactions in the database.
Online Backup
In case, you cannot bring down the database to perform an offline backup, you can use the online backup method. Perform a full or an incremental backup when the database is online. This backup is useful when you want to perform a point-in-time restore of the database.
Log Backup
You have the facility to backup the archive logs either automatically or manually as per the options set up in the database. These logs can be applied to an online backup to recover the database to the current point-in-time.
You can also protect the non-database files and profiles using appropriate File System Agent.
Selective Online Full Backup
Selective online full backup is run when the MaxDB database is online and the backup job is copied to a selective copy. On successful completion of the full backup job, you can select, store and protect your data on a secondary copy for future restores in a viable and economic way.
Command Line Support
Backup and restore operations can be initiated from the SAP command line as per SAP requirements. The iDataAgent is fully integrated with the SAP MAXDB database using DBM CLI (a database management tool provided by SAP; it supports backup and restore operations of database and parameter files using BACKINT interface from SAP Command Line).
Efficient Job Management and Reporting
You can view and verify the status of SAP backup and restore operations from the Job Controller and the Event Viewer windows. You can also track the status of the jobs using Reports which can be saved and easily distributed. Reports can be generated for different aspects of data management. You also have the flexibility to customize the reports to display only the required data and save them to any specified location in different formats. For example, you can create a backup job summary report to view the completed backup jobs.
In addition, you can also schedule these reports to be generated and sent on e-mail without user intervention.
Terminology
The SAP documentation uses the following terminology:
|
Terminology |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Client |
The computer in which the iDataAgent is installed. It contains the data to be backed up. |
|
Instance |
The SAP MaxDB database to be used for the backup and restore operations. |
|
Subclient |
The SAP data to be backed up. |
|
DBM CLI |
DBM CLI (DBM Command Line Interface) is a Database Management Tool supplied with every SAP MaxDB that is used to perform backup and restore operations. |
|
Backint |
Backint is an interface program that allows DBM CLI to communicate with SAP MaxDB using streams/pipes to perform backup and restore operations. |