A practical way to backup your Tandem files.

1. Introduction

We regularly backup our NonStop server files. Tapes are used commonly for this purpose, they
have great capacity, are fast and not too expensive.
When we would like to restore the data, for any reason, it is OK, but it is not so quick & easy. If we
need for example more than one file, the files are not in the same subvolume or we need historical
data for a wider time frame and the files are stored on several tapes. It can be painful.

It would be nice to have such a backup that can be instantly accessed just as it were on the
NonStop server. This is a different approach to backup your Enscribe files that will be often needed
and every bit of the information is important.

The idea is to use Windows or Linux hard drives to store the data and use such a file structure that
is record oriented and contains the exact copy of the Tandem file records. These files than can be
accessed using the converted version of the same DDL definitions we use to access the data on the
NonStop server.

The Windows/Linux server hard drives are very cost-effective nowadays and have huge capacity to
store great amount of data. It is really practical when you would like to have long history of your
transaction log files for example.

The data can be accessed instantly, no need to restore it to the Tandem server (although it is
possible if it is really needed). Every bit of the data is there, nothing is lost. BASE24 PTLF/TLF log
files are good example: all the token data are there.

The „Stefi” software is used to query the data, using

the converted DDL definitions. It is quite a powerful
tool, has a nice graphical user interface, you can use
filters for any field, with enhanced BASE24 token
handling. Regular expressions can also be used to
define your filters.

2. How to backup the data

There are two methods to backup the files.

2. 1 Using FTP

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We can use the standard FTP protocol to backup the files. The FTP server is there on the NonStop
server and we can choose from several FTP clients.
The NonStop FTP server implements the record structure oriented file transfer, that can be
activated with the „STRU R” command. In the FTP client we have to issue this command in the
form of „QUOTE STRU R” before the file transfer commands.
The FTP protocol is suitable also for restoring the files, we have to create the files before
transferring the data and “QUOTE STRU R” is also necessary.

2.2 Using the GTF utility

GTF is a command line file transferring program. It has a corresponding server on the NonStop
(FRead server). This server is similar to an FTP server, but is mainly record oriented, not file
oriented.
GTF can produce the same format on the backup side as the FTP client or can use its own format
that contains not only the data records but also some information on the file parameters.
GTF can also be used for restoring the data. The files must be created on the NonStop side before
restoring the data.
It has the following extra functions (compared to the FTP client):
Record structure definitions can be used
we can filter which records to transfer, using the above structure definitions
We can also filter which fields to transfer
NonStop files opened for update can also be transferred
Has the following additional output formats:
Text
Html
Excel (CSV format)
Ms Sql server
Can be used for NonStop to NonStop file transfer

3. Using Stefi to browse the backup data

Stefi is a general purpose file browser tool, running under

Windows, that has 3 interfaces to access the files:
NonStop server interface to access NonStop files
Local interface to access local files
Windows/Linux server interface to access files on
these servers

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The NonStop server interface uses the same server component as GTF.
The backup files can be browsed with the Local or Windows/Linux server interface.
Stefi reads the files as records and always uses structure definitions to interpret them. Based on
this definitions filters can be defined to keep only desired records. It can handle not only single
files but batches of files which is useful when browsing daily transactions log files.
The structure definitions can be created by scratch, but can also be converted from NonStop DDL
definitions. There is a separate conversion utility for this purpose.
It has a great support for BASE24 files, lots of DDL definitions are already converted. PTLF, TLF and
ILF have “active” structure definitions with computed columns and a sophisticated Token Browser.
Lots of EMV data is also easily accessible.
Here is a screen shot of browsing TLF data:

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With Stefi we can browse the backup files the same way as if they were on the NonStop server. No
need to restore them.
Data can be easily exported to Ms Office and MsSql environment.

The server component for the Windows/Linux environment is useful when remote access is
needed for the backup files. Here is a screen shot when opening a set of files through the Windows
server:

With Stefi we have a very user-friendly way to access the files and sometimes we are not really
aware whether the data comes from the NonStop or from the backup server.

2010 September
Audit Profit Ltd.