Data Consistency with SAPDBA (SAP Library - SAP Database Guide: Informix (BC-DB-INF-DBA))

Data Consistency with SAPDBA

Use

It is very important to regularly check the data in your Informix database for physical consistency. If you do not check regularly, you might not notice data corruption until you attempt to restore the database in the event of failure. Corrupt data in your archives and backups might then prevent successful restore of the database.

You do not notice data corruption when you create an archive or backup. The SAPDBA consistency checks cannot damage your data since they only read the data without changing it. The checks do not check for logical consistency.

Integration

Data consistency checks are fully integrated in SAPDBA. You can use this functionality for databases running on UNIX and NT operating system platforms.

Prerequisites

You know how to use SAPDBA and have set it up correctly. Refer to Getting Started with SAPDBA.

Features

SAPDBA data consistency checks operate on different objects, that is, single tables, tables of a dbspace, tables with "blob" fields, and all the tables of an R/3 database. For a faster check on tables with blob fields, SAPDBA offers you an interface to the Informix oncheck tool.

Activities

For guidelines on how to use the data consistency checks in SAPDBA, see How to Run Data Consistency Checks with SAPDBA. You have the following possibilities:

If you want to perform a thorough check, choose one of the following:

Checking a Single Table for Data Consistency with SAPDBA

Checking Tables of a Dbspace for Data Consistency with SAPDBA

Checking Tables with Blob Fields for Data Consistency with SAPDBA

Checking All Tables of R/3 Database for Data Consistency with SAPDBA

If you want to perform a faster check limited to tables containing blob fields, choose one of the following:

Checking Indexes of Tables with ‘Blob’ Fields Using ONCHECK -cI with SAPDBA

Checking Tables with ‘Blob’ Fields Using ONCHECK -cD with SAPDBA

If you want to delete any previous requests that you have stopped or that failed to complete correctly for some reason, choose Deleting Uncompleted Consistency Requests with SAPDBA.

If you try to re-execute a check that has previously failed, SAPDBA automatically leads you to Restarting Uncompleted Consistency Requests with SAPDBA.

Note

To prevent problems arising, SAP recommends you to regularly check your data for consistency. You can do this by scheduling the check with the DBA Planning Calendar in the Computing Center Management System (CCMS) of the R/3 System. Refer to Checking Physical Consistency in the DBA Planning Calendar (Informix).

See also:

Informix documentation