Guidelines for Database Backup (ON-Bar) 
Guidelines for Database Backup (ON-Bar)
The following guidelines apply to Informix database backups (that is, whole-system and storage-space backups) with
ON-Bar :You can create database backups while the Informix database server is fully online and no extra risk is involved. Data consistency is maintained, which means that you can restore the database correctly (to the point the database backup was started).
You can put the database server into quiescent mode for a backup, but this is normally unnecessary. You cannot perform database backups in offline mode. For more information about Informix database server modes, see
Storage-space backups run in parallel. This means that a logical-log backup is necessary immediately afterwards to make sure of data consistency in the event of a restore. Therefore, always follow a storage-space backup with a logical-log backup.
Whole-system backups are always executed serially. Therefore, data consistency in the event of a restore is guaranteed. So you do not have to do a separate logical-log backup because the logical logs are included in the backup.
A database backup, particularly one that uses software compression, may affect the performance of the Informix database server. Since performance of your database is critical, you should perform backups during off-peak hours.
Sometimes, you should perform a whole-system backup at level-0. For example, you have to perform a whole-system backup at level-0 after changing the configuration of the physical and logical logs. Whole-system backups are also required with
For more information about database administration activities requiring a whole-system backup at level-0, see the Informix documentation.