Information on the BACKINT interface can be found in Using External Backup Programs.

The essential advantage of using this interface is pointed out here: You can use other backup media (for example magneto-optical (MO) media) for a backup or you can transfer volume management to other systems (for example tape jukeboxes)..

The disadvantage of these programs was that in an online backup (before SAP R/3 Release 3.0B) all the tablespaces to be backed up were in backup mode during the whole backup and considerably more redo log entries were created for this reason (that is, the volume of offline redo log files was considerably increased in a backup with BACKINT). The interface was extended to eliminate this problem. See information about the option util_file_online of parameter backup_dev_type or about the corresponding command option -d util_file_online .

Information on the throughput and performance of external backup programs can be obtained from the vendors providing the interface program BACKINT and its support for the respective backup program.