HyperBac for Sybase - Product FAQs

What is HyperBac for Sybase and how does it work?

HyperBac for Sybase is an enterprise backup acceleration solution for your Sybase environment. Working with your existing backup techniques, HyperBac uses high performance lossless compression to reduce the size of your backup data sets by up to 90% and the time taken to perform your backups by up to 50%.

The HyperBac benefit (and hence its capacity to scale to enterprise use) is that it provides the appropriate balance between maximizing compression, ensuring transaction throughput and minimizing operation times.

In practical terms, this means that HyperBac ensures a high transaction throughput during operation, no CPU bottlenecks and a shorter operation window.

HyperBac seamlessly integrates with Sybase's native backup procedures. The database administrator does not need to change his existing scripts or deal with another application layer to use HyperBac.

In addition HyperBac has been designed with vendor independence in mind. Archive files can be converted to native backup files (physical or logical) at any time on any system, offering peace of mind for customers as well as a viable alternative recovery path should the restore or import occur on a system which does not have HyperBac installed.

Last but certainly not least, HyperBac has integrated AES (128/192/256 bit) encryption to protect your backup sets.

Can I use HyperBac to compress logical operations (such as bcp)?

Yes. HyperBac for Sybase delivers integrated, transparent compression and AES encryption for Sybase BCP export/import operations. This is a unique and differentiating offering which allows Sybase administrators to seamlessly perform compressed/encrypted export archives.

What technical advantages will HyperBac for Sybase deliver?

HyperBac for Sybase delivers a number of technical advantages.

•  Solution performance means that there is less contention for resources on the system(s) during backup operations. The advantage here is that you can avoid or avert the need to re-schedule or partition your backup operations to cater for end user requirements.
•  HyperBac gives you immediate relief from the pain of growing data volumes. As your data volumes grow, you can hedge against their impact upon disk resource and backup window through HyperBac’s integrated compression.
•  Because HyperBac allows you to continue using existing processes and native Sybase commands, there is no change management risk nor is there a need for specific training or support.

Example

Your backup window can no longer accommodate your nightly incremental backups. The issue is serious as other batch transactions such as general ledger consolidations and invoice runs cannot be re-scheduled or changed.

One unpalatable response to this situation is to split the backups and target different database objects for different nights. This means risk and greater loss of data in the event of disaster.

A far more appropriate option in this circumstance is to deploy HyperBac to reduce both your backup times to cater for the existing window. The additional benefit is that your backup will be significantly compressed, freeing physical storage resources as well.

Does HyperBac for Sybase require me to change my existing backup scripts?

Not at all.

HyperBac for Sybase is designed to work with your existing scripts or with the Sybase Central wizards. The only thing required is to point your dump device (or output file) to a HyperBac registered destination.

Integration Example

You perform a dump that writes a file called mybackup.bak. Just change the filename to mybackup.hbc or mybackup.hbe (file extensions which are built in recognised HyperBac archive files)

That is all that is required. Change the file extension and HyperBac will recognize it.

In the above scenario we used the default extensions HBC (for compression only) or HBE (for compression and encryption). In fact, you can configure HyperBac to nominate any file extension you wish.

Will HyperBac for Sybase cause me to change my disaster recovery policies or procedures?

No.

But it will give you options that you previously didn't have. By reducing your backup size you can keep more backups online. That gives your flexibility and options during recovery.

As importantly, it saves you time during recovery, because you won't have to rely on fetching tapes from off site locations.

You'll reduce risk. Why? Because you'll have more backup sets online and on your site, which can be validated at greater frequency. This is not always possible or feasible with offsite archives. You can also eliminate the inherent risk associated with failed tape media.

Where does HyperBac for Sybase install?

HyperBac for Sybase is a server side solution, deployed on the same machine as your actual database instance.

Will HyperBac for Sybase impact the integrity of my database?

Not at all.

HyperBac for Sybase works at the file system layer. It does not have hooks or dependencies on your Sybase database instance.

HyperBac simply listens for backup and restore traffic and acts upon that data stream if the destination or source is known to HyperBac. Otherwise HyperBac has nothing to do with your Sybase instance or the integrity of the data within it.

We use network storage to hold our backups, are we still able to use HyperBac for Sybase?

Yes.

HyperBac for Sybase is a disk based backup solution and it will seamlessly work with all DASD, SAN or NAS devices.

Can I restore or import HyperBac created archives without HyperBac?

HyperBac for Sybase is shipped with a royalty free extraction utility, which is a simple command line utility for Linux and Unix installations. It is deployed as a graphical tool as well as a command line utility for Windows installations.

The extractor allows you to take an existing HyperBac backup and transform it into the native database format. There are many benefits to this facility. Consider the following examples:

•  You can transport compressed and/or encrypted backups (securely and without unnecessary bandwidth demand) to remote sites and then simply use the extractor utility to transform the backup set to native format. This has application to those who replicate testing or development environments.
•  The extractor utility can expedite and lower the cost of server migrations or consolidations.
•  The extractor also serves to give you peace of mind. You can continue to work with HyperBac backup sets irrespective of whether or not the product is deployed.
We recognize the importance of vendor independence as much as you.

How does HyperBac for Sybase improve transaction throughput during backup operations?

HyperBac for Sybase delivers an improvement in transaction throughput by up to 10 times during the backup process in contrast to comparable conventional backup operations. This is due to the substantial reduction in write disk I/O during the HyperBac backup process.

With regard to performance on Sybase systems, HyperBac delivers greater compression and takes no more time than a compressed database dump (level 1). Similarly, it delivers equivalent compression at considerably less time than the level 9 compression capabilities within Sybase.

For those using the Sybase Central BACKUP command, then HyperBac delivers 90% compression and reduces the time taken by up to 50% against the native command performance.

Can I backup specific objects such as individual tables using HyperBac?

Yes.

You can backup any object level that Sybase permits you to backup, dump or BCP.

Can I still perform native Sybase backups?

Yes.

That is the entire purpose of HyperBac for Sybase. Use your native tools and commands and integrate HyperBac to optimise their performance.

If you don’t want to use HyperBac then you can point your output to a destination that is not known to HyperBac. Alternatively you can simply turn off the HyperBac service or daemon.