Best practices for Sybase and Veeam

[damocue]

Hi all,

I'm a Veeam partner and my comrades and I have sold several environments with SAP virtualized with VMware. Usually we install SAP on SQL Server, with the right configuration of VSS, and we get succesful backups and restores.

But right now we are offering SAP with Sybase as database running on Windows-OS, and we'd like to know which best practices we should follow to get a right backup for this environment:
- Application-aware with VSS?
- VMware quiescencing with pre-job and post-job scripts?
- No one of these?

We've tried both, but we're not sure about what is the best option.
Has anyone done backups and restores with this environment?

Regards,
David Molina

[foggy]

David, the first question here is whether the DB version you're offering is VSS-aware. Basically, if it is not, you need to use VMware prefreeze/postthaw scripts in conjunction with Veeam B&R backup job to back it up. Please search the forum for existing topics regarding this.

There are also should be some native tools to backup Sybase database, I assume.

[Vitaliy S.]

In order to check whether Sybase has VSS writer or not, you can use this command:

Code: Select all

 vssadmin list providers

[damocue]

Hi,

First of all, thanks for your answers.

I've checked if Sybase is VSS-aware, and it can be at version 12. It's possible to install a VSS writer for Sybase, which

will act as it does, according to the following Sybase KB:
http://dcx.sybase.com/1200/en/dbadmin/d ... 15940.html

According to the note above, I think a VSS-aware backup would be the right combination, but I'm not sure at all, due to that SAP is like a black box for me. My SAP comrades and I are going to test this option, I'll share our conclusions here.

Despite of this, I asked if some users of this forum had previous experience with an environment similar to this one. I've read lots of documents for Oracle databases, and I was thinking if with Sybase could it be similar. Has anyone faced some like this before?

Regards,

[veremin]

My SAP comrades and I are going to test this option, I'll share our conclusions here.

From my perspective, the best approach would be to backup given VM with AAIP enabled. Then, restore it in isolated environment (connect to VB&R VLab appliance) and see whether everything works as expected. This way, not only would the full functionality be tested, but also such operation wouldn't affect production environment.

Thanks.

[james411]

In order to check whether Sybase has VSS writer or not, you can use this command:

Code: Select all

 vssadmin list providers

Wouldn't it be "vssadmin list writers"?

I just installed SAP Business Objects myself (4.1 which uses SQL Anywhere 12) and it would appear the VSS writer is not enabled by default. I used the following page to create the VSS writer service for it: http://dcx.sybase.com/1200/en/dbadmin/d ... ities.html

It is the last example, edit as you see fit for the path, etc.:

Code: Select all

dbsvc -as -s Automatic -t vss -w SAVSSWriter 
"C:\Program Files\SQL Anywhere 12\Bin32\dbvss12.exe"

[foggy]

Wouldn't it be "vssadmin list writers"?

Correct, this was what Vitaliy meant, I believe.