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Veritas NetBackup™ for DB2 Administrator's Guide

Last Published: 2021-06-07

Product(s): NetBackup (9.1)

BLI incremental backup options using NetBackup for DB2

DB2 BLI incremental backups can be initiated several ways. Initiating them from the master server is the recommended method because it requires no special configuration. Operational constraints may necessitate initiating the backups from the client host, two options are available.

Note:

BLI is not currently supported for DB2 Snapshot backups on Microsoft Windows clients, the examples in this section use UNIX Bourne shell syntax. Modify as appropriate if using a different shell.

The following three options describe how to initiate DB2 BLI incremental backups. Some of these options also contain examples of a policy setup that you use and how to modify the backup script

Server-initiated DB2 BLI incremental backups (recommended)

We recommend that you initiate BLI backups from the master server. Initiate the BLI backups using automatic schedules and a Backup Selection that is a script or template. When NetBackup controls the initiation, no special configuration is needed. The policy and the schedule information are provided to the client from the master server. The agent queries the policy and the schedule information and perform the appropriate type of checkpoint; full, cumulative incremental, or differential incremental.

Client-initiated DB2 BLI incremental backups using environment variables

If the backup is initiated from the client, then the schedule from the db2.conf file is used by default. To perform both the full and the incremental backups, the backup script must be enhanced. The enhancement is to ensure the correct type of schedule and associated checkpoint is used. This enhancement can be accomplished by setting the same environment variables that the master server sets before the backup is initiated.

Create appropriate automatic full, automatic cumulative incremental, and automatic differential incremental schedules in the DB2 backup policy.
Set environment variables to specify the automatic schedule to use before the agent program is executed.
Create one db2.conf file in the $DB2_Instance_Home directory. Update the schedule keyword in the database stanza with the name of the application backup schedule to use for any stream-based backups that might occur. The value is overridden with automatic schedule names in the following example.

The following is an example of a policy that has automatic schedules for the snapshot backups and an application schedule for the stream-based backups.

master$ bpplsched DB2_Policy -L | egrep '^Schedule:|^  Type:'
Schedule:              Full
  Type:                FULL SDB2 (0)
Schedule:              Cum
  Type:                CINC (4)
Schedule:              Diff
  Type:                INCR (1)
Schedule:              Default-Application-Backup
  Type:                UBAK DB2 (2)

The policy only has one db2.conf file, and it is set for stream-based backups.

client$ head -4 $DB2_Instance_Home/db2.conf
DATABASE SAMPLE
OBJECTTYPE DATABASE
POLICY DB2_Policy
SCHEDULE Default-Application-Backup

The backup script sets and exports the appropriate environment variables before the backup is initiated.

DB2_INCR=0
DB2_CINC=0
DB2_FULL=0
if [ <some_condition> ]; then
  DB2_INCR=1
  DB2_SCHED="Diff"
elif [ <some_other_condition> ]; then
  DB2_CINC=1
  DB2_SCHED="Cum"
else
  DB2_FULL=1
  DB2_SCHED="Full"
fi

DB2_POLICY=DB2_Policy
DB2_SCHEDULED=1

export DB2_INCR DB2_CINC DB2_FULL DB2_SCHED DB2_POLICY DB2_SCHEDULED

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bpdb2proxy <options>
# or 
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bpdbsbdb2 <options>

Client-initiated DB2 BLI incremental backups using multiple db2.conf files

If the backup is initiated from the client, then the schedule from the db2.conf file is used by default. The db2.conf file can specify only one policy and schedule for a specific database. To perform both the full and the incremental backups, the backup script must be enhanced. The enhancement is to ensure the correct type of schedule and associated checkpoint is used. This enhancement can be accomplished by updating the db2.conf file before the backup is initiated.

Create appropriate automatic full, automatic cumulative incremental, and automatic differential incremental schedules in the DB2 backup policy.
Create a db2.conf file to be used with each schedule. In each file, update the schedule keyword in the database stanza with the associated schedule name.
Copy the appropriate db2.conf file into place before executing the agent program.

The following is an example of a policy that has automatic schedules for the snapshot backups and an application schedule for the stream-based backups.

master$ bpplsched DB2_DB_Policy -L | egrep '^Schedule:|^  Type:'
Schedule:              Full
  Type:                FULL SDB2 (0)
Schedule:              Cum
  Type:                CINC (4)
Schedule:              Diff
  Type:                INCR (1)
Schedule:              Default-Application-Backup
  Type:                UBAK DB2 (2)

The policy has three db2.conf files, one for each type of automatic backup schedule.

client$ head -4 db2.conf.with_full_schedule
DATABASE SAMPLE
OBJECTTYPE DATABASE
POLICY DB2_DB_Policy
SCHEDULE Full 

client$ head -4 db2.conf.with_cum_schedule
DATABASE SAMPLE
OBJECTTYPE DATABASE
POLICY DB2_DB_Policy
SCHEDULE Cum 

client$ head -4 db2.conf.with_diff_schedule
DATABASE SAMPLE
OBJECTTYPE DATABASE
POLICY DB2_DB_Policy
SCHEDULE Diff

The backup script copies the correct db2.conf file into place before the backup is initiated.

... <setup the rest of the DB2 backup environment> ...

if [ <some_condition> ]; then
  cp db2.conf.with_diff_sched $DB2_Instance_Home/db2.conf
elif [ <some_other_condition> ]; then
  cp db2.conf.with_cum_sched $DB2_Instance_Home /db2.conf
else
  cp db2.conf.with_full_sched $DB2_Instance_Home /db2.conf
fi

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bpdb2proxy <options>
# or 
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bpdbsbdb2 <options>

More Information

Configuring policies for BLI backups with NetBackup for DB2

About the types of NetBackup for DB2 BLI backups

About configuring the db2.conf for a snapshot policy