Backup Business Process Service

How the Backup Business Process Service Works

The Backup Business Process service is invoked by the BackupService business process based on settings in the Archive Configuration section of the Archive Manager. By default, the Backup Business Process service will run daily at 2:00 a.m. Business processes specified in the Archive Manager to be archived will be saved in a backup set. The Backup Business Process service backs up the specified business process data and removes it from the database.

Beginning with version 4.1.1, Sterling B2B Integrator supports incremental backups. The Backup Business Process service divides all business processes that are eligible for archiving into chunks and processes each chunk independently. If an error occurs while processing a chunk, the chunk that had the error is invalidated. This eliminates the need to rerun the entire backup set because of an error in that chunk.

Incremental backup also allows you more control over the backup process. Each time you run the Backup Business Process service, you can specify the maximum number of business processes per chunk, the maximum number of chunks to process and the maximum number of days per backup set. For example, if you only want to back up a single business process, you can set the maximum number of business processes per chunk to 1 and the maximum number of chunks to 1.

Backup sets are stored in a directory with a name based on the date and time stamp when the backup set was created. For example, a backup set created on May 3, 2006 at about 4:22 p.m. might be named 20060503_162234. Each chunk of the backup set has a separate data directory named using the following naming convention DATAchunkNumber. For example, the first chunk is stored in DATA00000 and the tenth chunk is stored in DATA00009. Only good data directories are kept in backup sets.

If an error occurs while backing up a chunk of business processes, that chunk is not backed up in that set and will be returned for the next backup. The system deletes the directory on disk that holds the chunk data that was written before the error, but the processes in the chunk are not deleted. If the error is later resolved, the chunk will then be backed up. If not, a notification is sent to the system administrator.

The most likely errors while backing up chunks are not due to bad data in business processes. Most errors are due to a transient condition, like a timeout from the overloading of the database. When the transient condition is resolved and the archive is run again, the error does not occur, and the chunk is backed up normally. For errors that do not go away, contact customer support to determine a course of action.

Table data is written to files using Java serialization. The files are named using the name of the table being backed up according to the following convention: tableName.dat. For example, the backup file for the WORKFLOW_CONTEXT table is named workflow_context.dat. Any documents on disk that are associated with table data are copied to the backup set.

Implementing the Backup Business Process Service

The Backup Business Process service is preconfigured as BackupService. Do not create additional configurations. The BackupService configuration can be edited, if needed, in the Sterling B2B Integrator Admin Console. For basic information about editing service configurations, see Managing Services and Adapters.

Configuring the Backup Business Process Service

You can specify field settings in Sterling B2B Integrator, using the Admin Console.

Field	Description
Name	Unique and meaningful name for the service configuration. Required. Do not change the preconfigured name.
Description	Meaningful description for the service configuration, for reference purposes. Required.
Select a Group	Select one of the options: None – Do not include the configuration in a service group at this time. Create New Group – Enter a unique name for a new group, which will be created with this configuration. (You can then add other services to the group as well.) Select Group – If service groups already exist for this service type, they are displayed in the list. Select a group from the list. Note: For more information about service groups, see Managing Services and Adapters.
Thread Pool Size	Number of execution threads allocated to archiving. Required. Default is 8. Note: Although allocating more threads usually increases performance, never allocate more threads than the number of tables plus one. Allocating too many threads can decrease performance.
Number of Business Processes per Backup Set Chunk	Maximum number of business processes grouped together within a single chunk of a backup set. Required. Default is 10,000.
Maximum Number of Chunks per Invocation	Maximum number of chunks that will be backed up in a single backup set. Required. Default is 25.
Compress Data	Whether to compress the data before archiving. Valid values: True – Compress the data. This reduces the amount of disk space required for storing the backup set. False – Do not compress the data. This improves backup speed and performance at the expense of disk space.
Maximum Backup File Size	Maximum size of a backup file before creating a new file. Required. Default is 1.
Archive File Size Unit of Measure	Unit of measure used for Maximum Backup File Size. Required. Valid values: K – Kilobyte M – Megabyte G – (Default) Gigabyte T – Terabyte
Maximum Number of Days per Backup Set	Maximum number of days that will be backed up in one backup set. Required. Default is 2.
Run as User	Applies to the scheduling of the business process. Type the user ID to associate with the schedule, or click the icon and select a user ID from the list. Valid value is any valid Sterling B2B Integrator user ID. Note: This parameter allows someone who does not have rights to a specific business process to run it. If you select Admin as the user ID, you will inherit Administrative rights (for this run of the business process only), and enable the scheduled run.
Use 24 Hour Clock Display	If selected, the service will use the 24-hour clock instead of the default 12-hour clock.
Schedule	Information about scheduling the business process invoked by the Backup Business Process service. Valid values: Do not use schedule If this field is selected, the service does not run on a schedule. Run based on timer Valid values are the hour and minutes at which to run the service. If you choose to select a time interval, the valid values are the hours and minutes for the intervals. Add or delete selections as necessary. Specify any schedule exclusions or date exclusions. Indicate whether you want the service to run at startup. Run daily Valid values are the hour and minutes at which to run the service, daily. If you choose to select a time interval, the valid values are the hour and minute for the interval. Add or delete selections as necessary. Specify any date exclusions. Indicate whether you want the service to run at startup. Run based on days of the week Valid values are the day of the week, the hour, and the minute that specify when to run the service. If you choose to select a time interval, the valid values are the hours and minutes for the intervals. Add or delete selections as necessary. Specify any date exclusions. Run based on days of the month Valid values are the day of the month, hour, and minute that specify when to run the service. If you choose to select a time interval, the valid values are the hours and minutes for the intervals. Add or delete selections as necessary. Specify any date exclusions.