You can use SAPDBA for Informix to produce a report that helps you restore your database. The report lists the tape volumes required to restore the database, so shortening the difficult job of identifying the required tapes. Refer to Recovery Report with SAPDBA.

• You normally use ON-Archive for data recovery,
• You have an up-to-date report covering the period of data loss. Refer to Preparing for Recovery Reports with SAPDBA.

1. Look at the most recent recovery report. See Listing Recovery Report with SAPDBA.
2. Starting at the top of the report, locate the volumes listed. To make this easier, you should previously have physically labeled your tape volumes with:

· At creation time (that is, when the volume was initialized in ON-Archive ), the volume label and the label name for the volume set.

· At archive/logical-log backup time, the save set id and date. For archives, you should also have written the level (that is, 0, 1 or 2) on the tapes.



Make sure that the tape volumes that you use in all ON-Archive archives and logical-log backups are physically labeled (that is, write on the actual tape volume itself) with the information given above. If not, you need much longer to recover your database in the event of failure.

3. If your tapes are not correctly labeled, execute the following command outside SAPDBA to determine the ids of save sets on your tape:

$ ondatartr 'list/tape=(/dev/rmt/0m)'

The parameter /dev/rmt/0m refers to the physical name of the tape device on which the tape is mounted. This command is extremely time-consuming and you need to perform it for each archive and logical-log backup volume. You can interrupt it with CTRL-C . However, it is best to avoid this situation by correctly labeling your tape volumes.

4. If any volumes are missing, decide what to do next: