25 Jan 2011

What Does The Backup Validation (-VAL) Switch Do

We had a query recently from a customer asking why their backup was taking different times every night and what does the -VAL switch actually do. They compared the times listed in the ADMSConsolelog files for different nights that the Validation was running.

05.01.2011 01:27:17 Validating backup databases ... 2/3
05.01.2011 02:01:32 Validating backup databases ... 3/3

01.01.2011 01:57:37 Validating backup databases ... 2/3
01.01.2011 03:25:20 Validating backup databases ... 3/3

Firstly the -VAL Validation runs as a background process. Therefore, other higher priority processes can easily cause the backup time to vary.

Regarding what the Validation actually does, it does two things. It compares the backed up database to the live SQL database via SQL. It also compares the checksum for each individual file in the Filestore with the backed up Filestore. If there is a mismatch, it will report the error in the ADMSConsolelog file.

This is an extract from the Cracking the Vault, Manufacturing Community Blog

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