Additional Notes on Backups

Once you have settled on a backup method, you will need to set up a schedule for running your backups, determine the locations where the backed-up data will be stored, and develop a procedure for testing backups to ensure they can be restored.

Differential backups. Differential backups are much quicker and less processor-intensive than full backups, providing a way to get many of the benefits of daily backup without the costs in disk space and computer time. Most backup software allows you the option of running a differential backup, which will back up only the files that have changed since your last full backup.

Frequency. You should run a full backup at least once a week, and differential backups at least once per day. If your installation is very large, with thousands of pages added every day, you should strongly consider running differential backups two or more times per day. They may make the difference between losing an hour's work or losing an entire day. When possible, you should run your backups (especially full backups) at times when your system has a relatively light load, such as at night or on weekends.

Automation and testing. Most backup solutions will allow for some type of automation, whether through scripting or through built-in automation methods. You should automate the backup process as much as possible, though automation cannot replace human supervision. Whomever is responsible for backing up your Laserfiche system should check the system frequently to ensure backups are successful, and test to ensure the data can be fully restored.

Synchronization. Running backups takes time, and it's possible that your SQL database may be changed while you are backing up your volumes, or vice versa. There are a few different ways to address this problem.

• Temporarily disable your volumes while you perform the backup; this will ensure they are not modified during the process.To fully automate your backup, write a Toolkit script to perform this step. 
• Temporarily set your Everyone group read-only, which will allow users to continue to view documents, but not to modify them.
• Take your repository temporarily offline while running the backup. This will guarantee that no changes are made during the backup process, but makes the repository unavailable for the duration of the backup. It is therefore a good idea to take this step if there is a time (for instance, very early morning) when few or no users will be attempting to access the repository. You can use a WMI script to unmount your repository to automate this step; see Introduction to Windows Management Instrumentation for more information.

For more information on a specific repository administration topic, return to the repository administration home page.