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Administration
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Archive Your Data
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An archive is a complete copy of your Alexandria database, which can be used as a restore point in the event that your data is lost or damaged. It's a quick and automatic way of saving your database before making any large changes, such as performing an import, utility, update, or upgrading your machine.
An archive is not a backup, but it can be used as a backup once you've moved it to a secure, offsite location. This way, if the computer running Alexandria is damaged or otherwise inaccessible, the data you saved offsite will still be available to you. Read Back Up Your Data for more information.
Types of Archives
- Daily Archives are automatically scheduled to be performed during Daily Operations.
- Snapshot Archives are initiated manually from Administration > Status.
Settings
Archives are configured in your Administration > Database Settings or Controller Database Settings.
If you're Cloud-Hosted, you won't have access to these settings because your hosting subscription includes automatic nightly archives and regular database maintenance.
Archive Directory
We've recently simplified Archives to be the same for all Alexandria configurations, which eliminated an unnecessary archive directory path. We no longer support separate folder paths for Controller/Administration archives and Data Station/User archives. Now, all saved archives are stored in an archive folder within in your Alexandria Support folder.
You can set a custom location for your Archive Directory in Administration > Database. If you enter an invalid folder, it will automatically be replaced with the default. We highly recommend that you change the location to a folder outside of your Alexandria Support folder, preferably on a separate drive.
We control the folder structure within your Archive Directory. Within the Archive Directory is a subfolder for each of your database serial numbers. This is where individual archives are stored. Archives are titled by the date and time in the YYYYMMDD HHMMSS format. Daily archives include "DAILY" in the title; Snapshot archives do not.
Archives > Serial Number > Archive YYYYMMDD HHMMSS
Archives > 8888001 > Archive 20180824 120055 DAILY
Storage Limits
Here, you can choose how many Daily Archives and Snapshot Archives to store at a time, up to 14 of each. Just make sure you have enough free space for them all! If you begin to run out of space, or if you're already storing more than the number you specified, the oldest archive of the type being run will be removed.
We strongly advise you to review your Database Settings to ensure that your archive directory is up to date and the number of archives stored is properly configured based on your needs and available disk space.
Important
Before archiving your data, here are a few things you should know:
- Your database will be inaccessible while the archive is running.
- After an archive is complete, if there are too many of that type of archive being stored in your Archive Directory, Alexandria will remove the oldest archive to save the new one.
- If you run out of space or otherwise run into a problem mid-archive, the partial archive will be removed and the error will be noted in the log.
At minimum, 40GB of free space is required to perform an archive. Maintaining sufficient free space is important for reliable server operations.
- If there is a problem during a Daily Archive, the server will quit. You can restart Alexandria as long as you have 40GB or more free space available.
- If there is a problem during a Snapshot Archive, the Snapshot archive and any operations related to that archive will not be performed.
- For example, if you attempt to perform an archive prior to running a utility and the archive runs into an error, the utility will not be run, either.
- If there is insufficient free space to perform a Snapshot Archive as part of a Restore, the Restore will not be performed.
Before performing an archive, Alexandria will run an integrity check on your server, check that the Archive Directory is available, and make sure there's enough free space on your drive.
- If any of these fail, an email will be sent to alexhost@companioncorp.com with your license number and the Operations Summary file with a log about the error, and then your server will shut down.
If you run into an error, check the log in Operations Management to see what happened.
Restore from Archive
A Restore will replace your current data folder with data from an archive. It basically takes you back in time to the point when the archive you're restoring was created. You will lose all of your current reports, utilities, etc., so make sure this is what you want to do.
A Snapshot Archive will be performed prior to initiating the restore, just in case anything goes wrong. However, if there is insufficient free space to perform the archive, the Restore will not be performed.
To restore an archive:
- Go to Administration > Status.
- At the bottom of the window, click Restore From Archive.
- Archives are sorted newest to oldest. Select the archive you'd like to restore.
- Click Restore.
- Are you sure you want to restore? Click Yes to continue, or No to cancel.
Your database will be inaccessible while the restore is being processed.
