Domino Online Backups

A Domino Online Backup allows you to save Domino databases while the Domino server is active and the database files are in use. If you use Domino and can’t afford the time to end the Domino server to back it up, Robot Save’s Domino online backups are the answer you’ve been looking for.

Domino databases are part of the integrated file system (IFS). You can back up these databases by selecting Save All IFS to save the entire IFS, but that requires the Domino server to be ended.

Transaction Logging Formats

To perform a Domino online backup, the Domino administrator must turn on transaction logging on the Domino server (this is similar to journaling physical files in IBM i). Domino allows three types of transaction logging formats: Archived, Circular, and Linear.

Archived

Continues to add changes made to the Domino databases to the log files. The log files are not overwritten until they are backed up. Archived transaction logging allows you to recover your Domino databases to a selected point in time. Without archived logging, you can only restore the database as it was at the time it was saved.

Restoring a Domino database restores the database as it was when it was saved. It does not apply any changes made to the database after it was saved. Recovering a Domino database restores the database and then applies the saved transaction logs to recover data to a date and time you specify.

Note: Your Domino software must be at release 6.0.2 or higher to allow you to recover your databases.

Circular

Reuses the log file when it fills the user-defined amount of storage. You can restore your Domino database if you use circular transaction logging; however, you cannot recover the database to a specific date and time by applying the transaction log records.

Linear

This is similar to circular logging, but allows you to define a greater amount of storage for the logs.

Caution: When archived logging is on, the logs can rapidly grow in size depending on how much activity occurs in the Domino databases. The only way to delete the transaction logs is to save them as part of your backup. Thus, we recommend saving the Domino transaction logs daily to prevent serious storage problems. This is similar to saving journal receivers; after it is saved, the journal receiver can be deleted. After the transaction logs are saved, Domino deletes them from the system automatically.