Performing a full online database backup

This type of backup allows you to take a live backup, while users or processes are still connected to the database.

Getting ready

You do not need to schedule downtime for this task. Allow for sufficient space to hold backups and archived logs.

How to do it...

In this case we specify ONLINE, which tells DB2 to perform an online backup:

[db2inst1@nodedb21 ~]$ db2 "BACKUP DATABASE POS ONLINE 
  TO "/xchng/backups" 
  WITH 2 BUFFERS BUFFER 1024 PARALLELISM 1 
  COMPRESS UTIL_IMPACT_PRIORITY 20 
  INCLUDE LOGS WITHOUT PROMPTING"

Backup successful. The timestamp for this backup image is : 
20111125231539

How it works...

As you perform the backup, db2 will store session operations in the online logs, so archive logging activity will be higher than usual until the backup is completed.

There's more...

You can throttle a backup operation to leave CPU resources available for other processes or users. Be aware there are restrictions to backups, and that certain other...