Definition: Backup
A backup is a transportable representation of the data in a Directory Server backend. Each backend is responsible for controlling whether or not it is possible to back up its contents, and ensuring that the backup information is suitable to be restored at a later time. Note that the term "backup" can be used as both a verb (the action of backing up the contents of the backend) and a noun (what you get when you perform a backup).
There are a number of reasons that a backend may not provide a backup mechanism. Some reasons include:
- The backend only contains temporary, point-in-time information that doesn't make sense to archive or attempt to restore at a later time (for example, the root DSE or the monitor backends).
- The backend stores its information in a remote repository that is not directly available to be archived. In cases like this, the external repository will likely have its own backup and restore mechanism.
The primary backend used by Sun OpenDS SE is one that uses the Berkeley DB Java Edition as its underlying database and that backend provides complete backup and restore capabilities. The backup mechanism is also very portable and can be transported across different platforms and different filesystem locations, and it is suitable for use as a binary copy mechanism.
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