[p4] Backups interrupting Perforce?

[Weintraub, David]

If your depot is so big that backing up the entire versioned files is
taking too long, maybe you should consider incremental backups. It is a
very good likelihood that only a small percentage of your source files
change everyday, so incremental backups can be much faster. There's a
lot of premium backup software for both Windows servers and Unix servers
that can help you handle this.

It is possible using the Unix find command, and "cpio" to backup only
the files that actually got changed, and I know people who've used this
as their backup strategy, but remember that your backups will depend how
well you've got that shell script working, and whether you're
technically savvy enough to be able to restore from one complete backup
and three incremental backups. I would feel safer buying a premium
solution to handle backups.

As others have suggested, take a good look at your hardware and
software, and determine where bottle necks occur. Tape drives have a
reputation of being pretty slow backing up information. If that's the
problem, consider replacing your backup medium with either a better tape
drive, or some other mechanism. Also look at taking snapshots which
allows users to continue making changes on the disk during the backup.

That way, you don't have to care how long the actual backup is taking.


-----Original Message-----
From: perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com
[mailto:perforce-user-bounces at perforce.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Desharnais
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 2:16 PM
To: stefan
Cc: perforce-user at perforce.com
Subject: Re: [p4] Backups interrupting Perforce?

This sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't seem to aleviate the long
process of backing up the actual versioned files, which is what takes
the most time.
 

________________________________

From: stefan [mailto:deubeulyou at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 1:39 PM
To: Jeff Desharnais
Cc: perforce-user at perforce.com
Subject: Re: [p4] Backups interrupting Perforce?


The following post describes a way to to 'offline backups' , which is
probably what you want:

 
http://maillist.perforce.com/pipermail/perforce-user/2006-January/017218
.html 





On 11/7/06, Jeff Desharnais <jdesharnais at maddocsoftware.com> wrote: 


	We are having an issue here where our assets are growing larger
and
	larger and thus our backup times (LTO tape) are increasing.
	
	Because of this, we are actually having the backup process creep
into
	the mornings at times, where developers are starting their work
day. 
	
	When this happens, we are noticing hangups of Perforce as the
backup
	finishes up.
	
	Obviously, this is something we want to prevent.
	
	We are currently backing up all of P4ROOT with the exception of
the db.* 
	files. We are also backing up the actual depot folders on the
other
	drive.
	
	I suppose my question is twofold.
	
	1) What backup procedures are recommended for backing up
Perforce and
	the assets? Any suggestions or common practices you could share?

	
	2) If what we are doing is the recommended way, are the hangups
expected
	and are they avoidable?
	
	Thanks,
	
	
	---------------------
	Jeff Desharnais
	IT Specialist
	Mad Doc Software
	100 Burtt Rd., Suite 220 
	Andover, MA  01810
	(978) 409-6272 Ext. 132
	
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