Friday. 11:00 AM. I get a phone call from a managed services provider who knows nothing about OpenEdge. Their customer had been down since around 5:00 AM and no one knew what to do. Oh, and by the way, this is version 8 on Windows.

Welcome to our first ProTop newsletter, where you’ll find out what’s new, tips and tricks and other cool ways to use both the free and commercial versions of ProTop. In this issue, we’re going to start with some ProTop basics.

What’s the best tool to backup the database? Do I have to shut it down? What does Progress recommend? What do experienced DBAs use? Should I hang it up, hire a resume writer? Relax, the right answer came with the OpenEdge installation. Take a look:

What not to use and why

Hardware-based backups including OS backups, disk mirroring, “snapshots,” and third party tools are not the best way to back up the database as all of these require the database to be in a quiescent state. In order to get a snapshot of the database files, you have to shut down the DB server or use proquiet. Careful with proquiet: you need to wait until the “Quiet point has been enabled” message appears in the db.lg before proceeding.

Ahhh…Mike Tyson. You gotta love Mike Tyson. You, on the other hand, you are probably more like Marvis Frazier. I see the puzzled look on your face: no, not Smokin’ Joe Frazier, the first person to beat Muhammad Ali in 1971. I’m talking about Marvis Frazier, his son. Look it up: KO’d in 30 seconds. Nice uppercut in the first round. When people talk to me about their high availability measures, I think about Marvis Frazier. Good looking guy. He talked the talk and walked the walk, but when it came time to deliver, he failed. Twice. Most of your high availability planning is the same. It’s good enough to impress the 24-year-old junior auditor from Deloitte but will never deliver when you actually need it.

From Big Iron to a “Commodity Server”

In this real-life case study of the migration of a 1,500+ user system from Solaris to Linux, we examine the question of how large a user load a Linux Server can support.

We may be the best OpenEdge DBAs in the world, but when it comes to website design, well…no comment. We turned to our friends over at Falia | Marketing numérique and Samarkand and said HELP!!

I think they did a pretty good job. Check out our new WSS website and let us know what you think in the comments section (but be nice!).

White Star Software is proudly sponsoring the Australia PUG Challenge 2020 at Hotel View Sydney (formerly North Sydney Harbourview). There will be many sessions from White Star Software over the span of 2 days that will provide a hands-on experience through exciting breakout sessions. PUG Challenge Australia is a conference for everyone who uses Progress products to develop or run business systems, whether they be developers, software architects, database administrators, infrastructure specialists, business analysts or salespeople.  

White Star Software is proudly sponsoring the South Africa PUG Challenge at the Indaba Hotel, Spa and Conference Centre in Fourways, South Africa. There will be 3 workshops over the span of 2 days that will provide a hands-on experience through exciting breakout sessions. PUG Challenge is a conference for everyone who uses Progress products to develop or run business systems, whether they be developers, software architects, database administrators, infrastructure specialists, business analysts or salespeople.