Warning

We strongly recommend to perform the backup on a daily basis and also prior update to any never version of YSoft SafeQ. Non-regular backing up of the database and configuration may lead to the irreversible data loss.

A regular daily backup is described below. No additional steps other than those mentioned here are required for the backup. The backup consists of database backup and configuration files backup. It is the customer's responsibility to perform the backup and copy backup files from the servers to a safe location, e.g. an off-site network-attached storage or backup tapes.

CML Backup

It is essential to perform the backup of configuration and the databases on a daily basis. To perform the backup kindly follow the instructions from articles CML Database backup and CML Configuration backup.

The backup is performed using SafeQBackup.exe tool. More information about this tool (such as how to use it to generate command line parameters for a regular backup via scheduled task) is described in article CML Backup tool.

Cold backup

Y Soft recommends to set up the "cold backup" server.

For a quick recovery in the event of a hardware failure, it is desirable to have a backup server ready from which a cold backup can be performed. With respect to system loading speed, a backup in the form of a virtual server may be necessary in a certain cases. The cold backup server remains inactive and disconnected from the production environment. In case of a failure, the backup server is started, the configuration of YSoft SafeQ server is restored according to the Recovery procedure for master node or Recovery procedure for slave node and server is connected to the production environment to replace the failed node .

The following rules applies to the cold backup server:

The backup server hardware configuration shall be the same as the hardware configuration of the CML server it shall substitute.
The backup server shall also include a pre-configured and maintained operating system and pre-installed YSoft SafeQ server (CML) in a configuration as similar as possible to the production servers (YSoft SafeQ application + SQL database)
A YSoft SafeQ upgrade must be performed on the cold backup server after each installation of the given upgrade on the running production servers.
The system administrator is responsible for performing the maintenance required for the cold backup server.

YSoft SafeQ does not have to be correctly configured on the cold backup server.

Backup & Restore using virtual machine snapshot

WARN: Using this type of backup & restoration procedure will cause that all changes made in the environment since the time of last backup till the time of the failure (such as new users, new devices, new statistical data...) will be lost!

If you have YSoft SafeQ CML (including database) installed on a virtual platform, you can also use the virtual machine snapshot functionality for a regular system backup. However, following rules and conditions applies:

Environment with one CML node

Server has to be stopped when creating snapshot.
Every time you restore the CML node by returning to the previous snapshot, cache on every ORS has to be deleted. For specific instructions see article ORS - How to delete corrupted cache.

CML cluster environment

all servers (the whole cluster) has to be stopped when creating snapshots.
snapshots has to be created on all servers at the same time.
when any CML node becomes corrupted, all CML nodes has to be reverted to the previous snapshot. Once all the nodes are restored, cache on every ORS has to be deleted. For specific instructions see article ORS - How to delete corrupted cache.