Configure Backup

As the ContentStore is a DATABASE, configuring a daily backup is an essential function. The database is extremely lightweight as only metadata is stored (e.g. layout of views, labels for dimensions, info text) which even for an application with hundreds of screens, is never going to amount to much data.

All actual data resides on the "reporting instances" which Apliqo UX connects to. No data is ever replicated in the ContentStore. The only metadata which is replicated on the ContentStore asside from the view definitions is lists of metadata objects which are present on each connected instance (e.g. list of available cubes, dimensions, users, groups).

Dependencies

The ContentStore comes with its own built-in local backup procedure which takes a copy of the ContentStore data directory and compresses it into an archive file on a daily basis.

The backup process is dependent on only 4 things:

1. The content store being aware of the location of both the data directory and the target backup directory

2. The 7-zip executable (7z.exe) being locally available (no installation is required)

3. The system user the ContentStore service is running under having write access to the backup directory

4. The backup chore being scheduled

» 7-zip

7-zip is available on most windows servers. If not already available on the server it is available from https://www.7-zip.org/download.html No installation is required for 7-zip. It is sufficient to place 7z.exe in a location accessible to the TM1 server.

» File system location

Once 7-zip is available all that is required is to configure the location of both 7-zip and the source and target directories so that the backup job is aware of all locations. This is done in the }APQ Settings cube.

Open

All 4 parameters shown under "Backup Params" need to be configured with the correct values. For more information on the parameters in }APQ Settings see the previous section.

» Scheduled chore

The ContentStore comes with a built-in backup job called APQ.ContentStore.Backup. By default the backup job is scheduled to run once daily at 10:30pm local time. You should ...

• Adjust the time of the job to a suitable time

• Ensure that the chore is active

Backup job configuration

The standard configuration of APQ.ContentStore.Backup

• Runs 1x daily

• Creates 3 files: daily backup, weekly backup, monthly backup. (Daily file is created fresh each day, weekly & monthly files for same time period are overwritten)

• Has the following standard file retention

  • Daily: 10 days

  • Weekly: 10 weeks

  • Monthly: 6 months

• Following file types are excluded from backup

  • .blb

  • .feeders

  • .cma

  • .csv

  • .log

  • .txt

  • all TM1 temporary (*$) files (.feeders$, .cub$, .dim$, .log$)

All these settings are configurable by adjusting the standard parameter values within the chore.

Test the backup

To test the backup job manually execute the chore.

Open

The job should only take a few seconds to run.

Go to the backup folder location and confirm that the 3 files have been created.

The screenshot below illustrates the standard configuration with retention of:

• 10 days of daily files

• weekly files for 10 weeks

• monthly files for 6 months