The OpenEdge DBA Files

Read on for more soul crushing, database corrupting, career killing ways to CRASH your OpenEdge database!

Linux "Out of Memory Killer"

A Linux self-preservation mechanism, the OoMK terminates a process when memory is over-committed. Unsurprisingly, the OoMK kills the process consuming the most memory, which, most likely, is the database broker process.

A quick Google search will turn up numerous interesting articles on how to avoid this situation, including ways to tune "oom_adj". In practice, though, it is unlikely that your database will be spared and you are better off making sure that you have ample memory to handle the expected workload on your server. 

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.

I was called in to consult at a site where the backups were exhibiting strange behaviour. The backup file was the normal 15Gb in size and the time stamp was from last night, but when they restored it in test there was no new data.  In fact, the most recent data they could find was from a couple of weeks ago.